Brown Bee Coffee, the College Hill cafe that has become a fixture for Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design students, plans to open a second Providence location at the corner of Waterman and Brook streets. The new shop will sit on the first floor of The Carlyle apartment building, just steps from campus.
The expansion comes straight from the pages of the Brown Daily Herald, which reports that the second cafe will be slightly smaller than the original Benefit Street shop but is designed to feel more cozy and intimate. The Carlyle is owned by Walter Bronhard Realty, and the space previously served as a lobby with offices for two real estate agents before being handed over for the cafe buildout.
Brown Bee's original location had a soft opening in September 2024. Since then, the Benefit Street cafe has been flooded with Brown and RISD students, and the company decided to add a second cafe after seeing that demand hold steady rather than fade.
Same Drinks, Smaller Footprint, New Crowd Control
The Carlyle location will have a similar atmosphere and menu to the original cafe, serving the same drinks as the Benefit Street shop while adding a takeout window. It will initially offer a smaller selection of pastries, with plans to expand that pastry menu once the new cafe becomes more settled, per the Herald's reporting.
Brown Bee's new site puts it closer to Brown's campus than the Benefit Street location, which has long been described as something of a trek for students coming from the heart of campus.
The new cafe has not opened yet.
Regulars Weigh In On the New Spot
Not every customer is thrilled about that no-laptop rule. Chloe Cho said she would be willing to visit the new Brown Bee location, and added that less foot traffic would make her even more likely to stop by. Cho also said changing the weekend laptop policy would give students more places to study, a wish that, per Huang's comments, seems unlikely to be granted at the new site.
Other regulars don't expect much to change in their own routines. Amit Patel, a Providence resident who frequently visits Brown Bee and typically orders a specialty croissant and a latte, said he will likely remain a regular at the original location simply because he lives nearby. Karen McAninch, who visits Brown Bee about once a month during bike rides, is among the loyal customer base the cafe has built on Benefit Street since 2024.
On the landlord side, Walter Bronhard Realty welcomed Brown Bee as a tenant in part because residents of The Carlyle might enjoy having a cafe downstairs. Tracy Kelleher, property manager for Walter Bronhard Realty, has overseen the transition of that first-floor space from real estate offices into what will become Brown Bee's second storefront.
A Changing Commercial Landscape Near Campus
The expansion lands at a moment of visible turnover in the neighborhood's food and retail scene. According to Turnto10, several businesses on nearby Thayer Street — including Kung Fu Tea, Tiger Sugar, Aroma Joe's, Bagel Gourmet and Spectrum India — closed during the summer, with Kung Fu Tea citing redevelopment of its building after a decade in operation. Students and owners described the strip's churn as unusually lopsided, with one person telling the station that turnover on Thayer is fast but that there have been more “shuts” than “opens.”
Business owners pointed to rising rent and declining sales as factors behind the closures, Turnto10 reported, while reduced foot traffic from Brown students over the summer months also made things harder for shops that depend on the campus crowd. Brown Bee's move into a residential building just off Waterman and Brook streets offers a contrast to that pattern — an expansion rather than a retreat, timed to demand rather than disruption.
Brown Bee isn't the only coffee operator eyeing growth in the area. Hazel Origin Coffee was reported by WPRI to be opening its third Providence location in August 2025. Against that backdrop of a shifting coffee scene, Brown Bee's second cafe is betting that the same ingredients that built a following on Benefit Street — the same drinks, a similar aesthetic and a steady stream of students — will work just as well a few blocks closer to campus.
