JoJo’s Becomes Newest G Cafe

While cutting the ribbon Friday to his fourth bakery-cafe spot, Andrea Corazzini paid homage to his European roots — with a hot latte. 

City officials welcomed G Cafe co-owners Corazzini and Christian Festa to the corner of Chapel and Park Streets with a celebratory opening event. The coffee shop previously at the location, JoJo’s, closed during the pandemic.

“I feel like I just delivered a baby,” Corazzini said after cutting the ribbon.

The cafe serves fresh bread and pastries daily. It is open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. during the winter season. Corazzini said as the warm months arrive, the shop will likely extend its hours. 

The doughs are fermented for days to offer a more ​“fresh aroma and flavor.” 

The menu includes fresh Italian filone, 100 percent German rye, and Jewish rye breads. 

Festa and Corazzini have been bringing the ​“European experience” of a coffee shop to New Haven. The company already owns a regional bakery in town as well as cafes on Orange Street and at Tweed New Haven Airport.

Corazzini is the head baker for the cafe. He offered free and fresh loaves of bread with customer purchases Friday. 

He added that the third spot in New Haven makes him feel like a ​“proud New Havener.”

The final touches for the cafe were installed the day before with handmade ceiling lamps made by Kiara Matos, to whom Corazzini is married.

Local architect Fernando Pastor of SeedNH worked with the owners to give the spot some ​“European flavor.” 

The five-month redesign mission to open up the space with natural wood, lots of light, and vertical patterns began this past August. 

The bakery’s back wall is layered with thinly cut vertical boards of natural plywood, inspired by Scandinavian and European design. 

Pastor, who is Argentinian, said he and Corazzini connected quickly through their cultures, which made designing easy, he said. 

The service counter is made up of vertical ceramic tiles imported from Italy to complement the shop’s natural, inviting, and open layout. 

Corazzinni’s first G Cafe on Orange Street opened seven years ago. The second location opened this summer at Tweed, helping flyers to smuggle fresh bread and pastries down to Florida, joked city Deputy Economic Development Administrator Carlos Eyzaguirre. 

Mayor Justin Elicker encouraged New Haveners to shop locally and support local business. He is a frequent customer at the Orange Street shop, where he often orders a chocolate croissant and coffee with cream. 

“I think it’s a testament to the spirt of New Haven that we have local businesses investing in the local community and hiring local residents,” Elicker said. 

More than half of the 45 total G Cafe staff at all locations are New Haven residents. 

Chapel West Special Service District Operations Manager Anthony Giano said he looks forward to the shop creating more foot traffic in the neighborhood. 

“This is just the beginning of a long-term venture,” Corazzini said. 

Corazzini was asked about the recent announcement by Yale University that students may not enter local shops, restaurants, and bars in order to avoid the spread of Covid. He said he is not worried because it will give the shop more space to service all of New Haven. 

“Yale is only one part of the city. The city is a lot more than Yale, so it’s OK for us,” Corazzini said. 

The ​“G” in G Cafe originally stood for German, after the bread made at the Whole G Bakery. Now it also stands for ​“good, great, and grain,” Corazzini said. 

One of Corazzini’s favorites for its taste and story is the ​“45” bread, which has a northern European- inspired taste and is made from 50 percent whole wheat.

He made it while experimenting in the kitchen one day with whole wheat and coarsely milled flour. Once perfecting its size and rectangular shape, he went home to share to good news with his wife on her 45th birthday.

“I was talking about how great the bread was and she was talking about how great 45 was,” he said. 

So he decided to name the bread ​“45.”