Starting in the 1880s, and continuing for more than forty years, Brooklyn NY was home to a large sugar refining plant and coffee import business owned by John Arbuckle. The company occupied several large blocks (plus several piers) on the waterfront, starting at the foot of Adams Street (warehouse and mill). It extended down John Street all the way to Bridge Street, then south to Water Street and then back up Jay Street to John Street. Their cooperage was in the middle of it all, on Plymouth. These folks manufactured Ariosa Coffee at the rate of nearly 840,000 pounds of beans per day.
All that’s left now (2012) of the once-great Arbuckles’ Stores of Brooklyn is one building, at the corner of Bridge Street and John Street, now serendipitously occupied by the Brooklyn Roasting Company.
According to an article in the New York Times in 1895, the coffee brand was named Ariosa as an acronym: A was for Arbuckle, RIO was for Rio de Janerio (the origin of the beans) and SA was for South America.
This company also manufactured candy and distributed it with their coffee. It was made and packaged on the second floor of the eight-floor building. The coffee itself was roasted on the eighth floor, cooled on the seventh, dried and packaged on the sixth, and joined the candy on the fifth floor. The other floors were used for storage, delivery and machinery. The sugar refinery (on the corner of John and Bridge) was destroyed by fire in 1911; and all the other buildings, including the warehouse and docks, are long gone.
