Approximately 3,675 miles across the pond in Mons, Belgium, there's a patisserie by the name of Colson, belonging to a man named Hubert Colson. For generations, it's been one thing: making beautiful pastries the right way. In 2006, a small shop opened in Park Slope with the same name and the same intention.
Twenty years later, Colson Patisserie is a Brooklyn institution, a Park Slope original that grew into a second café and commissary kitchen at Industry City in Sunset Park, baking pastries for some of New York's finest coffee shops, hotels, and retailers.
Natalie Abrams has been the executive chef for half of that run. She started as a teenager, biking to work at a bakery and hauling fifty-pound bags of flour before most people her age were up. Twenty years in, she's built a team that reflects the place itself, one that, by their own description, is "a band of genuine coffee nerds." Finding each other was probably inevitable.
They've spent those years building the kind of neighbor relationships that actually mean something: trading supplies in a pinch, borrowing equipment, returning favors. A good neighbor, in Natalie's words, is someone you can lean on, and hope to repay.
Earlier this month, Joe welcomed Colson's croissants, scones, and loaves into our cafes across the city. For Colson, that's just what good neighbors do.
Good Neighbors is an ongoing series about the businesses and people in Joe Coffee's community.