Baby's Coffee Came Home to Old Town and Added a Door on Bahama Street for Locals

Baby's Coffee? On Fleming Street? The Baby's from Mile Marker 15, with the wide-eyed logo you pass on the drive up the Keys? Keys Weekly asked nearly the same thing when the new café opened. It was full of customers on the afternoon of Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2026. The café sits at 518 Fleming St., on the corner of Bahama Street, across from Fausto's Food Palace.

The side door on Bahama Street matters as much as the Fleming Street address. The owners designed it for the locals who walk past on their way to work.

A Return Trip 31 Years in the Making

The owners call this opening a homecoming. "This location is about bringing Baby's back home to Old Town," co-owner Joe Bracciale told Keys Weekly. He added that many people don't know Baby Rodriguez first started the business at 1111 Duval St.

Here's the order of events Keys Weekly reported:

1. 1991. Gary Teplitsky and Olga Manosalvas buy Baby's Bodega at 1111 Duval St. from Baby Rodriguez. They choose coffee over barbecue on a coin flip. "Heads coffee, tails barbecue," Teplitsky remembered Manosalvas saying.
2. 1995. The business moves out of Key West to Mile Marker 15.
3. 2024. Bracciale and his wife, Alessandra Torre, buy the Baypoint landmark. They had been customers and lived in Baypoint.
4. September 2026. Baby's opens on Fleming Street. For the first time in 31 years, its coffee is poured inside Old Town.

The new owners said they wanted to keep Baby's as it was. "Our goal at mile marker 15 was just not to screw things up," Bracciale told the paper. On Fleming Street they brought pieces of that history with them. The sign that hung over the Duval Street bodega now sits in the front window on Fleming. Manosalvas designed the wide-eyed logo more than 30 years ago, and she was painting a new mural on the Fleming Street wall the week the café opened.

The Building Behind the Counter

The café is in a former antique store. Bracciale told Keys Weekly the building was entirely rebuilt. Most of what he pointed out has to do with water. "The water coming into this building goes through three filters and new copper wire," he said. The point is to get the same cup every time.

That detail fits a roaster that has built its name on doing one thing the same way for decades. It also shows that the owners planned this as a lasting second location in an old Old Town building, with plumbing to match.

The Door on Bahama Street

The feature that sets this café apart is a Dutch door that opens onto Bahama Street, around the corner from the Fleming Street entrance.

Bracciale and Torre announced a program called the Baby's Breakfast Club. Locals sign up with a local ID or a pay stub, order online, and get priority pickup at the Bahama Street door. Bracciale explained the reason in plain terms:

"We know people come in on their way to work and if they look in and see a line of tourists who aren't in a rush, they'll go somewhere else. We don't want that."

That quote is from Keys Weekly's report on the opening. He also gave a number that shows how much of the business comes from outside the Keys. Baby's ships 35,000 bags of coffee a month to customers across the continent. "But the whole business down here is about taking care of the locals," he said.

Compare those two quotes and the design makes sense. Visitors already buy Baby's beans by the tens of thousands of bags. The Fleming Street café has to earn something else: the person who passes on a bike at 7 a.m. and decides in about two seconds whether the line is worth the wait. The Bahama Street door is there to make that an easy yes.

Two programs have similar names, so keep them straight:

The Breakfast Club details come from Keys Weekly. The subscription is laid out on Baby's Coffee Club page. For sign-up details on the locals' pickup, check babyscoffee.com and Baby's social accounts, where the owners post updates.

What's in the Cup, and Who Roasts It

The coffee hasn't changed. Teplitsky still roasts for both locations. He told Keys Weekly he learned the trade on Duval Street three decades ago from two Cuban roasters who came down from Miami to help him. He made cup after cup until they told him to stop and not change a thing. "From that day on, that was and still is our exact Cuban Roast and Havana Roast," he said.

Despite the names, the beans aren't Cuban. Bracciale noted that beans grown in Cuba haven't been sold in the United States since the 1963 trade embargo. "Our coffee is 100% high-mountain, Jamaican coffee," he said.

Baby's store menu page lists hot and cold espresso drinks, café con leche, chai and matcha. Havana Roast and Cuban Roast appear among its dark roasts. The food on Baby's menu includes:

• Filled bagels, including a Cuban and the Eye-Opener with egg and turkey sausage
• Croissant sandwiches
• Beignets
• Croissants and muffins

On opening week, bagged beans, ground or whole, were on the merchandise counter next to shirts and hats. Anyone who used to stop at Mile Marker 15 for a bag on the way up the Keys can now buy one on Fleming Street.

The Hours Are the Promise

Baby's Old Town page lists the café as open daily from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. That means coffee is available at the corner of Fleming and Bahama from 6 a.m.

Bracciale treats those hours as a commitment. "We're consistent. We won't shorten our hours. And we're open 365 days a year," he told Keys Weekly. "In the coffee business, many of your customers come in five days a week. Those relationships are special and we never forget that."

That quote connects the door and the hours. A pickup window for locals only works if it's open when locals are walking past, every day of the week, in every season, including the slow stretches of the year.

The Room Upstairs Is Still Coming

The second floor isn't finished yet. During opening week, Bracciale walked Keys Weekly upstairs and described a dark wood and leather coffee lounge with balcony seating over Fleming Street. The plans call for history on the walls, including a giant Cuban flag from the 1800s and the original doors from the very first Baby's. The owners asked customers to follow Baby's on social media for news about the upstairs coffee bar.

When the lounge opens, the original doors from the very first Baby's will hang upstairs at 518 Fleming St., and the bodega's old sign is already in the window downstairs.

New shops on Old Town corners like Fleming and Bahama are part of what makes this neighborhood feel like home, and keeping up with them is part of how I know these streets. If you're thinking about a home within walking distance of your morning coffee, or wondering how changes on your block might affect your property, Lori Langton would be glad to talk it through. Schedule a free consultation.