The Stony Brook area is home to a variety of locally-owned food places that students may not know about if they do not leave campus often for meals. Crazy Beans in Stony Brook Village and Tiger Lily Café in Port Jefferson are two examples of such places. Both offer unique menu items and atmospheres.
Crazy Beans (Stony Brook)
This small café in Stony Brook Village has a welcoming and inviting atmosphere. The inside is decorated with red-and-white checkered floors and retro booths. Every table even has its own specially-themed, themed salt and pepper shakers. One booth features a motorcycle-couple set of shakers.
A unique touch is that the café iced drinks are served in mason jars. Manager Kevin Coleman said that Crazy Beans’ iced chocolate peanut butter latte is a fan favorite.
For those who want a hot drink, Crazy Beans’ serves them in a different decorative mug every time.
“My favorite part about working at Crazy Beans is the other people who work here,” Coleman said. “We are like a family.”
The café has 30 latte flavors to choose from, including the apple pie latte, toasted marshmallow latte, dark chocolate latte and a spiced brown sugar latte. On top of that, they have 18 flavors of tea. Flavors include orange spice, chamomile and bombay chai.
The menu offers everything from the Head Honcho (grilled steak, bell peppers, mushrooms, frazzled onions, cheddar, southwest ranch on a rustic roll) to the Pancake Quesadilla—scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, cheddar and Vermont maple syrup.
“People come in for the atmosphere, good food and friendly people,” Coleman said.
Tiger Lily Café (Port Jefferson)
Tiger Lily Café is known for its vegetarian options, but serves much more than that. The menu is divided between vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes to make it easier for those with dietary restrictions to view the menu.
“I love working at Tiger Lily Café because of the good energy and great food,” Kelly Connoly, café manager, said. “It’s artsy and fun.”
The mosaic tables give the place a hip feel. Customers also have a lot of variety to choose from when it comes to the drink menu. The menu has regular coffee, like the Mocha Java, which is the house blend. It also has specialty drinks like the Mocha Blanca, a white chocolate drink. Frozen Frappes are also available, with 10 flavors to pick from.
Tiger Lily Café offers quite an extensive juice and smoothie menu. The café has fresh squeezed juices, fresh squeezed cocktails, fruit smoothies, soy smoothies and soy protein energy shakes.
“There are so many customer favorites, I don’t even know where to begin,” Connoly said. “They love our sunshine burgers, protein shakes and juices.”
