Alison Roman is getting ready to plant her flag in Brooklyn Heights this fall, bringing her boutique grocery and café First Bloom to the neighborhood after testing the concept with a Catskills corner store and a city pop-up. The move comes as the operation quietly recruits senior culinary and retail staff for a late-summer build-out, and locals are already gaming out which Montague Street storefront is about to be transformed.
Roman laid out the plan in a May 21 newsletter, telling subscribers that "First Bloom will become a permanent resident of The Big Apple" and sharing help-wanted listings for a general manager, head chef and head baker. Applications are funneled through a Google Form and an email address listed on the hiring page, according to Alison Roman's newsletter.
Curbed noted that the job posts specifically call out Brooklyn Heights and highlighted neighborhood chatter zeroing in on 144 Montague Street, a storefront long tied to Bentley's Shoes. That coverage also flagged a wry line from Roman's materials, "We will not have a Caesar salad," a hint that the menu is being built for the people who actually live nearby, not for whatever is going viral this week.
The Brooklyn Eagle reported that the Brooklyn Heights outpost will pair a small café and coffee bar with a retail floor, and described First Bloom's philosophy as serving "the best versions of the simplest thing," according to the Brooklyn Eagle. Lara Birnback of the Brooklyn Heights Association told the paper she is happy to see the business headed to the neighborhood.
What First Bloom Will Look Like
Roman's Catskills First Bloom revolves around a tightly edited mix of pantry staples, produce and prepared foods. The shop's website bills it as "a corner store where you'll find most things you'd need to make wonderful food." Public materials suggest the Brooklyn version will scale up that neighborhood-first approach into a larger retail floor with a modest café program, leaning on staffed service instead of gimmicky bells and whistles.
Where It Might Open
Commercial listings for 144 Montague show a retail space marketed as the former home of Bentley's Shoes and currently available for lease, which lines up neatly with the neighborhood speculation. A CREXI listing for 144 Montague notes that the prior tenant retired and the address is being pitched to a new retail operator, a detail that echoes the local chatter from people tracking every vacancy on the block.
Roman has been clear that she wants the Brooklyn store to be a low-key, genuinely local hangout, writing, "We're catering to a neighborhood of real people, not the internet," and the current hiring push points to a year-round operation rather than another quick pop-up, according to her newsletter. For now, the team is keeping specifics close, but the promise of a staffed café and a carefully chosen retail selection has already put Brooklyn Heights on alert.
