When nationally recognized Congregation Coffee closed in May, we lost what looked like the Crescent City’s next iconic brand. Fortunately, you can’t keep a good thing down for very long, and the company is poised to rise again under new ownership.
According to a permit filing with the City of New Orleans, the new Congregation Coffee will be under the stewardship of Patrick Brennan, who comes from the Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group, which owns iconic establishments Brennan’s, Napoleon House, and others. We were unable to connect with ownership regarding an interview.
Congregation Coffee was founded in 2015 by Elliot Guthrie and Ian Barrilleaux, who had worked together at Cochon Butcher. With a blend of great roasted coffee and industry connections, the partners found success supplying bags of Congregation Coffee to some of the biggest restaurants and grocery stores in New Orleans. The café in Algiers Point opened two years after the roastery was launched. In 2018, Congregation Coffee was named the best coffee roaster in Louisiana by Food & Wine magazine.
