When one door to a cafe closes, another one opens. Somerville welcomes a hybrid cafe and vintage clothing store called Nostalgia Vintage Cafe to Union Square while the taste fades from the celebrated Nine Winters Bakery on Concord Avenue in Cambridge.
When Nostalgia debuts at 322 Somerville Ave. sometime in mid-May, it will feature a curated vintage clothing collection and a full coffee bar with light pastry options, said the cafe’s founder, Phillip Kahan. Onyx Coffee Lab, a single-origin roaster in Arkansas, was chosen to supply the beans.
“We just wanted to make an experience, not just shopping or not [just] coffee, but a destination where people can come and hang out,” Kahan said. Nostalgia will have a “cool aesthetic,” honoring the “’90s and early Y2K” style beloved by Kahan and his fiancée and business partner, Jenny Reddick.
There aren’t many local coffee shops with full-fledged second uses, though New Leaf Espresso is inside a Razors Barbershop on Highland Avenue in Somerville between Davis and Ball squares, and Lovestruck Books in Harvard Square has a George Howell coffee bar. Nostalgia joins a hub of vintage clothing stores in Cambridge and Somerville, including The Garment District in Kendall Square, High Energy Vintage in Prospect Hill and Raspberry Beret in North Cambridge.
Among Nostalgia shoppers, “the prime demo probably is younger professionals and students,” . Kahan said. Reddick hopes the cafe will bring in “the coffee people” who may not be vintage shoppers.
Clothing prices will reflect Kahan and Reddick’s desire to make offerings available to a wide market. The average price point of a regular item is expected to be $20 to $45, ranging from as low as $5 to as high as $5,000, Kahan said.
Kahan is new to the area, a singer-songwriter who spent 10 years working with a record label in Hollywood. He made his way to Portland, Maine, where he opened his first vintage store, Highsociety.
Reddick, a born and raised Cantabrigian, is the city girl, while Kahan is “the woods boy,” they joked.
Reddick had been selling clothing and accessories with a company called Gypsy Bargain, vending mainly at market events such as Boston Pride and Cambridge Carnival. She and Kahan found a mutual love for the “feeling of the past,” a nostalgic comfort that Reddick says she hopes the store will bring to others.
From Nine Winters to zero
Cambridge, meanwhile, lost one of its favored spots for Korean-American cuisine.
Nine Winters Bakery in West Cambridge closed March 29 after opening in June of last year as a mother-daughter celebration of Asian-American culture.
“The cafe served as a way for us to approach Korean cuisine and traditional elements of Korean culture in a way that felt really accessible and shareable for younger audiences,” said owner Marissa Ferola, who lists daughters Janine and Winter as co-founders on the bakery’s website and gave the shop a playful interior with stuffed animals in its window nook.
The cafe was a way to anchor her family to their culture, Ferola said, and she closed it for the same reason: to connect with her children. “To be honest, I miss my children. They are getting older every day. And I know it’s so cliche to say it, but time goes by so fast when you’re a parent,” Ferola said.
Each Nine Winters menu item was a fusion of classic pastry with a Korean twist, from black sesame chocolate chip cookies to matcha vanilla shortbreads and kimchi cheese danishes.
Ferola, who became sober in 2024, said Nine Winters was a fresh start for her. “The hospitality industry is something where everyone has a genuine equal opportunity.”
It’s not just the cafe that is packing up. Ferola and her children are saying goodbye and moving to Austin, Texas to “start something new” again.
About The Author
