The Old Dairy Barn on Willis Avenue Still Sells Milk

For years, Christine Abatemarco's first stop of the day was the Dairy Barn on Merrick Road. She would drive in on her way from Massapequa to her family's manufacturing business in Garden City. Newsday reported that when that Merrick location sat shuttered in 2022, her family took it over and reopened it as Coffee Barn.

The second Coffee Barn opened on September 17 at 1181 Willis Ave. in Albertson, in a building Dairy Barn used to occupy. It's the brand's first location on the North Shore. The menu leans hard on pie-topped lattes and rainbow cookie drinks. Behind the window, though, the shelf still holds milk, eggs, bread, juice and peanut butter. The building is back to its original job, the quick milk run, with dessert-sized coffee on top.

A Barn Built to Move Milk

That barn shape on Willis Avenue started as a dairy farm's marketing idea. Long Island Business News lays out the history:

1. 1939. Edgar Cosman, a Swiss immigrant, bought a failing dairy in East Northport. Within a few years he had turned Oak Tree Farms into a profitable milk wholesaler.
2. 1961. His son Dieter Cosman opened the first Dairy Barn to help the family dairy sell more of its milk.
3. Peak years. The red-siloed Dairy Barn grew to as many as 70 locations around the area.
4. 2009. The Cosmans sold 38 of the remaining properties to Simi Enterprises, a family-owned company based in Long Island City. Simi ran the stores through its Loop Food Management affiliate.

Newsday's account dates the sale a little earlier, to 2008, and puts it at about 40 properties. Newsday also connects the chain's start to a specific moment: home milk delivery was slowing down, and a drive-through barn gave a dairy another way to reach customers. That explains the barn's design. It was built so a driver could grab a gallon of milk without parking.

How the Chain Came Apart

The milk-run model eventually ran into the same competition that hit most small convenience stores. In Newsday's reporting, Simi's managers blamed the decline on grocery competition, including drugstores and grocery delivery. LIBN reports that twenty-eight stores leased to an operator called GFG went back to Simi in November 2022, after nearly two years of GFG running them.

According to LIBN, several locations had already been leased or sold to independent operators. The barns now operate under successor and independent names, and Dairy Barn no longer runs as one chain. That breakup is why barn-shaped drive-thrus across Long Island now carry so many different signs.

Who Has Been Refilling the Barns

Since the chain broke up, the empty barns have mostly gone to coffee. The building already suited a drive-through with a small footprint and a quick in-and-out, so the conversions came in waves:

• Buzz'd Express Coffee planned a mid-November 2021 opening on the former Bellmore Dairy Barn site in North Bellmore. The Herald described that site as a vacant lot under renovation.
• Coffee Barn opened in the former Merrick Dairy Barn in 2022. Newsday credits it with being early to the refurbished Dairy Barn trend.
• Ready Coffee, a Hudson Valley chain that opened its first café in Wappingers Falls in 2019, bought ten former Dairy Barn properties for a little more than $9 million. The list includes 94 Forest Ave. in Glen Cove, along with sites in Baldwin, North Baldwin, East Meadow, East Northport, Franklin Square, Freeport, Hewlett, Lynbrook and Oceanside. In February 2025, Newsday reported that the Baldwin and Glen Cove locations had opened.
• The Barn has relaunched former barns as coffee-and-dessert stops in Huntington, East Northport, Patchogue, Ronkonkoma and Center Moriches. As of March 2026, Newsday listed Massapequa and Seaford as the next relaunches.

Coffee Barn is independent of both The Barn and the Ready Coffee franchises, according to Newsday. The Willis Avenue opening is a family operator's second location, and it doesn't belong to either chain's rollout.

Why Willis Avenue

Coffee Barn's own site lists this location as "Albertson/Roslyn Heights." Newsday placed it on the border between the two. When the Willis Avenue site came up, Anthony Abatemarco, Christine's son and the company's chief marketing officer, saw the road connections as the draw. He told Newsday it has

"easy access to Manhattan and Queens from all the highways, even folks coming from North Jersey."

He added, "We just knew it was the perfect site for Coffee Barn number two." That reasoning matches the original Dairy Barn idea, which was to put a drive-through where cars already go and make the stop quick.

What's at the Window This Fall

The coffee comes from For Five Coffee, which also supplies the Merrick location. The specialty lattes are built around dessert. The Rainbow Cookie, Powdered Donut and Cinnamon Bun are the regulars, and the menu also has dirty sodas, iced teas, matcha, milkshakes and soft serve.

Here's the price range from Newsday's September coverage:

The pumpkin latte is the obvious showpiece this time of year. The rest of the fall menu goes further. The Long Island Times lists an apple cider donut latte and cold brew topped with a slice of pie, and Newsday adds a pumpkin pie milkshake. The family has also started making its own whipped creams. The current flavors are pumpkin and caramel.

Every drink can be changed. "We have hundreds of possible options," Anthony Abatemarco told Newsday. "Start with a specific dirty soda, milkshake or latte, and build from there. It all depends how dramatic you want to get. Do you want a piece of pie on top of your coffee? It's up to you."

Halloween falls this Saturday, and the fall specials are still on the menu. Coffee Barn's FAQ says seasonal launches are announced on Instagram at @CoffeeBarnLI, so the holiday lineup will be posted there.

The Shelf Behind the Lattes

The lattes get the attention, but the store still handles the old Dairy Barn errand. Newsday reports that Coffee Barn sells everyday household items like milk, juice, peanut butter, eggs and bread. The company's site lists a "Grab & Go" section with snacks, drinks and essentials for the commute, and calls the stop commuter friendly.

The hours suit that kind of errand. Per Coffee Barn's site, the Willis Avenue window is open:

• Monday through Thursday, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
• Friday and Saturday, 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
• Sunday, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Newsday's opening story listed a 6 a.m. Sunday start. The company's own page shows 7 a.m., so check that page before an early Sunday run. The phone number is 516-960-2276.

The Cosmans opened Dairy Barn in 1961 to sell more milk from Oak Tree Farms. At 1181 Willis Ave., you can still drive up to the window at 6 a.m. on a weekday and buy a gallon.

We're Long Island locals ourselves, and openings like this one on Willis Avenue are part of what we track every week across Albertson, Roslyn Heights and the rest of the North Shore. If you'd like to hear what's opening near you, or just compare notes on the best pie-topped cold brew, reach out to Limor Karudo & Elimore Kochavi. We're always happy to talk about the neighborhood.