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A year to the day after Caroline Bell and her husband Chris Timbrell opened Café Grumpy in their Greenpoint neighborhood, the professionally caffeinated couple expanded to a cozy Chelsea storefront two doors down from the 10th Precinct. (Bell recognizes the detectives by their "cool suits.") Like every coffee shop that takes its craft seriously, Grumpy serves the full roster of espresso drinks, but there's also something special for the "regular coffee" drinker: a half-dozen single-origin roasts from North Carolina's renowned Counter Culture Coffee, each ground and brewed to order. Rather than conventionally brewing drip coffee, Grumpy has invested in two Clovers, the brainchild of a pair of wired engineers from (where else?) Seattle. Each cup is made fresh, from bean to brew, in about 40 seconds, with a hybrid French press–vacuum pot technology that allows the barista to make adjustments for grind, dose, water temperature, and contact time. The resulting flavor nuances and freshness don't come cheap: The machines, which make their East Coast debut at Grumpy, retail for $11,000 apiece. Soon, customers will be able to order samplers of all the Clovered coffees and attend regular cuppings. — Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld

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