Gone is the close quartered chaos of the old Jessie’s Bagels, where weekend mornings the double doors would swing open and close with customers coming and going. After 20 years in the same spot, owner Tony Grippo decided it was the right time to expand the shop, try something new and move. Next door. Less than two weeks ago, Jessie’s Bagels made their long anticipated move across the parking lot to the abandoned building that used to house Pacific Pool & Spa.

Goodbye Jessie’s Bagels. Hello Jessie’s Bagel Cafe.

“We moved over Sunday night and opened Monday morning,” Grippo said about his quickly executed location switch last week. “We worked straight through the night until 6 a.m. No one knew where anything was or anything. Then we opened up. We needed the space. Now we can go into a whole new menu. Stay open later. We’re going to sell ice cream, soft and hard ice cream.” The new cafe has nearly 3x the space of the old Jessie’s store, with 2400 sq. feet, including a brand new separate ice cream parlor next to the cafe, which carpenters were just finishing up. And plenty of parking for a lot that appears perpetually full.

Grippo said Pacific’s sudden move last winter turned out to be an opportunity for Jessie’s, which is named for Grippo’s daughter. Pacific packed and moved to the other end of Sloatsburg after the store was swamped by Hurricane Irene last fall — a string of Pacific hot tubs famously floated across Route 17 and into the Ramapo River where a few locals found them washed up on the riverbank. Grippo said the new Jessie’s Bagel Cafe was built to fit the location.

“We built the store so that if it does flood, we can clean it up quickly,” Grippo said, explaining that he just felt it was time to upgrade the old Jessie’s and shake things up. Jessie’s still has the same familiar faces working at the store, led by manager Donna Kastor, who has been at Jessie’s for 19 years.

The new cafe is spacious, clean and white, with white booths to sit down in, new appliances and counter and a new menu approach. The colorful chalk menus above the counter are the doing of Jessie herself, Grippo’s daughter, who the enterprise is named for and was just three years old when the store opened. Jessie hand wrote the entire new cafe menu in her steady, neat writing.

“We’re trying to expand the menu,” said Grippo, who at one time was an owner of the Bagel Train in Suffern.  “We’re going to have paninis. And probably put a couple of tables and chairs outside — have it open at night time.”

Grippo said he’s excited about the move, which was a big investment in time, money, and in Sloatsburg. “When I moved up here people said I was crazy,” he said thinking back to the early days when he first moved into his old space. “The people are great. I appreciate Sloatsburg — it’s been good to us all these years.”

Grippo feels the new Jessie’s Cafe will help give his side of Sloatsburg a whole new vibe, provide a place to pick up a sandwich and have a seat. Or go to for ice cream.

“Over the year you lose customers,” Grippo said describing the vagaries of the food business, where people like what they like but always have their eye open for something else. “We wanted to give them something new.”

Jessie’s Bagel Cafe is located along Orange Tpke between Sloatsburg and Tuxedo, NY. For more information, call Jessie’s at (845) 753-8019.