Without warning yesterday, December 4th, another one of my favorite coffee shops shut its doors forever; Alpha Dominche Extraction Lab, manufacturer of Steampunk extraction devices, formerly located in Brooklyn’s Industry City, is apparently no more. Mysteriously, the website, which had earlier been denuded of all information, is now fully operational, but all social media accounts are gone, presumably deleted.

I had visited several times recently, including this past Saturday, and nothing seemed amiss. Engineers were beavering away in the work area and the coffee bar, run by Denmark’s La Cabra, was doing a wonderful business, serving up a steady stream of espresso drinks, matcha lattes, and filtered coffee.

As of now, there are no details beyond what has been reported by Sprudge, that Alpha Dominche was ceasing all operations immediately and that no support would be forthcoming for partners, clients, or resellers. Damn. I wonder if La Cabra will take over the space – I’d heard that they were planning on building out their US roasting operation at that location.

One of the few cafes in New York City using the Steampunk 2.0 extraction device, Fort Greene-based Coffee Project was also taken unawares. They’d only just put their Steampunks to use in early September and then learned the news of Alpha Dominche’s demise Tuesday evening via a text from their tech support person. Hopefully they’ll be able to get some spare parts for their expensive machines.