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History of the coal yard cafe

What’s with the peculiar name? 

One needs only see the huge chunk of coal at the side of the original entrance to the Café building. Chiseled into the chunk are two words: “COAL OFFICE”. For many years, the building housed the official businesses that sold coal for heating to Ithaca residents. See the brass balance beam of the truck scales that weighed trucks loaded with coal in the dining area. Coal selling apparently began in 1901 at 143 Maple Avenue by the Stevens and Cornell East Hill Coal Yard. The “Cornell” was Francis C. Cornell, grandson of Ezra Cornell, founder of the university that bears his name. The businesses’ safe now supports the “Safe Table” in the dining area of the Café.

The coal yard had a succession of names and owners until 1960. The last was the Perry Coal Company; its restored sign hangs on the outer east wall of the café building. Coal arrived by train from Pennsylvania to a side track of the Lehigh Valley Railroad located in the coal yard. The East Ithaca Railroad Depot was located across Maple Avenue; there many past Cornell University students first set foot in Ithaca.

The Coal Yard Café opened in 2013 in the historic Perry Coal Office building as a “neighborhood commercial facility”, with cooking. Special permits were needed because of its location in a residential zone. Since 2006, the café has offered fine pastries, breads, and several lunch treats prepared off-site because cooking was not permitted at the café.