By Brian PJ Cronin
Katy Behney and her husband, Buddy, in September opened Trax Espresso Bar & Coffee Roasters at 1 East Main in Beacon. The couple also owns Bank Square Coffeehouse and Mountain Top Outfitters.
Why open a second coffee shop?
Buddy is always thinking about what’s next. He can’t sit still. But the timing was never right. Once we saw the space we thought, this is nice, it’s new, there’s a lot going on at this end of town, and we’ve been wanting to get into roasting more. That keeps the costs down, since it’s kind of risky competing with yourself in the same town.
How is it different from Bank Square?
We never expected another location to be as busy as Bank Square. We wanted to make the place simpler and focus on the drinks and the roasting. Our manager at Trax has years of roasting experience. We’re working with him to come up with coffees and blends different from Bank Square and teach people more about the coffee from start to finish.
Will your roasted coffee end up at Bank Square?
Eventually, but now it’s mostly what’s bagged and on the shelf for sale. We don’t want to mess with the espresso at Bank Square because we like the espresso that Coffee Labs Roasters in Tarrytown makes for us. But we might rotate some of the offerings in terms of the drips and the iced coffees.
What’s your favorite coffee?
I’m a cortado girl. I like the espresso, but I don’t like it straight. Little bit of milk, not too much. Buddy’s favorite is straight-up espresso. He wasn’t a coffee drinker before we opened Bank Square. That’s what Coffee Labs did. They showed us how to treat the beans to get the best results. A lot of places don’t understand the complexity of the beans and the steaming of the milk. If you do it right, you don’t need sugar or syrup because it releases the sugars in the milk.
What do you feel is the biggest change in Beacon in the past five years?
The food scene has really changed. When we started serving beer at Bank Square, there wasn’t any place between here and Max’s on Main that served beer. Now craft beer is all over the place. Locally sourced food is huge, which is great. We’re not competing with the places on Route 9. We’ve become a destination. There are places opening all the time that I don’t even know about.
