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By Admir Radoncic
On a typical afternoon at El Café in East Islip, conversation flows as easily as the coffee.
“You doing anything for Christmas?” owner Guillermo Guardado asks one of his regulars, David Alfaro, while working the register. Moments earlier, the two were chatting about surgery. Alfaro, a medical device sales representative, had stopped in after work — still wearing his scrubs.
“I like to pop in after work,” Alfaro said.
El Café, which opened in May, is tucked into a strip mall at 91 E. Main St. in East Islip, wedged between the A&S pork store and Buttermilk’s Chicken. In just a few months, it has become a familiar stop for locals — something that has surprised its young owner.
“It was more of a shock how it grew,” said Guardado, 22. “A lot of people know me from East Islip now.”
Before opening his own shop, Guardado worked as a server and barista. But the leap from barista to business owner, he said, came largely by chance.
“I’m very young; it’s not like I’m already retired and have a retirement plan where I can take out money,” Guardado said. “I’ve been saving money my whole young life.”
While working as a barista, Guardado said his boss once called him with an opportunity to rent a space. He turned it down because of the location, but later found the East Islip spot that would become El Café.
He chose the name — Spanish for “the coffee” — as a nod to his roots in El Salvador.
“When I was working for the coffee shop, you know, I was like, this is good,” he said. “I would actually enjoy it.”
El Café also reflects a broader demographic shift on Long Island, where the Hispanic population doubled from 10 percent to 20 percent between 2000 and 2020.
Guardado’s best friend is from Brentwood, and when help is needed, Guardado sometimes asks him or others to fill in shifts.
Still, the café operates with a very small staff.
“Currently, if you want to count just me and my brother,” Guardado said.
The brothers handle nearly everything themselves — making drinks, working the register, cleaning the shop and promoting the business on Instagram. El Café is open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. most days, though cleanup often keeps them there until 10 or 11 at night.
“I’ll tell you what the real hard thing that hit me was — the day after we first opened,” Guardado said. “I was like, ‘Oh, I have to be here every day.’”
Admir Radoncic is a reporter with The SBU Media Group, part of Stony Brook University’s School of Communication and Journalism Working Newsroom program for students and local media.
