Caffeine Underground: Ian Ford’s Bushwick Sanctuary for Coffee, Music, and Community

Ian Ford, a 52-year-old DJ and small business owner, embodies the highs and lows of New York City. His ties to the underground queer music scene in New York led him to create Caffeine Underground, a unique cafe and small music space located in Bushwick.

Since 2017, Caffeine Underground has been a place for coffee enthusiasts who can enjoy a latte for under $7. Ford, a coffee aficionado, sources his beans from Devoción, a company that imports directly from South America. His espresso is a Brazilian Costa Rican blend, while his drip coffee comes from the outskirts of Colombia. “It’s good. Yeah, it’s always good,” Dan Erbland, a regular at Caffeine Underground, told Bushwick Daily. Ford’s commitment to the community is evident through his staff, many of whom are artists, and his dedication to mentoring the next generation. In the summer of 2024, he collaborated with the city government to provide Brooklyn high school students with hands-on barista training and customer service experience.

Caffeine Underground: Ian Ford's Bushwick Sanctuary for Coffee, Music, and Community

Ford has created work opportunities for artists and those interested in the art of coffee. As a non-alcoholic, queer-friendly establishment open until 11 pm, Caffeine Underground welcomes all types of people looking to perform, teach classes, display artwork, or simply work on their craft while sipping coffee. “The idea is to support the underground scene, which is almost non-existent in New York anymore,” Ford shared with Bushwick Daily. “To give people a place where they can do something that’s not cookie-cutter or expensive”. Caffeine Underground is full of delightful idiosyncrasies. One table has a regularly used chess set, another a Monopoly board, and another has a mushroom lamp. Each chair and table are different from one another. Ford’s deep music knowledge is also on display, with a rotating selection of house, new wave, pop, and other genres playing on the cafe’s speakers throughout the day.

The cafe also hosts acoustic guitar performances, classes on Ableton for aspiring musicians, and comedy open mics. Most patrons are Brooklyn-based locals who are creative in their own right, and have a clear connection with Ford who knows their orders and is always present at the cafe. Simon Wood, a customer of Caffeine Underground for the last six years, told Bushwick Daily that he is a “regular” because Ford knows his coffee order, has met Wood’s parents, and is “the nicest, most empathetic human being that I’ve met in a long time”. Dan Erlband recounted to Bushwick Daily an example of Ford’s selflessness: “People will come in here, like construction workers around the block and they’ll be like, “Hey man, I really need to use the bathroom.” And he’s like, “Yeah, go ahead and use the bathroom.” Or like, “Can you charge my phone for me while I go get something from the grocery store?” And without hesitation, Ford says ‘yes.’ People that can’t afford something to eat, he’ll give them something to eat… at least that’s what I have seen with my own eyes”.

Caffeine Underground: Ian Ford's Bushwick Sanctuary for Coffee, Music, and Community

As open as Ford is with his space, it is hard to keep a small business open. Rent continually goes up, and the price of supplies goes up as well. Balancing paying his employees above minimum wage while keeping his prices manageable, results in Ford working 90-100 hours per week. He charges $0.50 for a bag of chips and has a free section where there are excess supplies and food. When asked why he works so much, Ford told Bushwick Daily, “For the experience. That’s all you really have. In life, you think you have all this money. You think you have a nice car and you do, but then what does that get you? Are you satisfied with what you left behind? Did you make anybody’s life better or did you just grub for dollars?… Did you spend your life doing something you believe in or did you go to a soul-sucking job just to get money to pay overpriced rent and buy overpriced food and do it again every day for 50 years and then expect to have a good life on a minimal retirement? Or did you live the whole time?”

Caffeine Underground: Ian Ford's Bushwick Sanctuary for Coffee, Music, and Community

After moving frequently as an adolescent, Ford settled in Northern Florida in the mid-1980s. He worked in medical billing after college, which he found soul-crushing, and longed for a creative outlet in music. His mother, who had sacrificed her own dreams for her family, encouraged him to follow his passion.

After eight years of being a successful DJ in Jacksonville, Florida, Ford decided to move to New York City in 1995. “It just felt like the right move,” Ford told Bushwick Daily. “New York was banging, the limelight was here, the top of United States nightlife was here. And I figured if I’m going to go to play in the big leagues, go to where the big leagues are”.

While some get broken by New York’s unrelenting nature, Ford was empowered to get to the top of the DJ scene, despite being homeless at points and getting hired and fired from clubs regularly. After finding housing with a friend in June of ’96 for $50 a week sleeping on a Bushwick floor, Ford met the promoter at ‘The Bank,’ and got the gig DJing there on Saturdays. At the time, ‘The Bank’ was the crown jewel of gothic clubs, and this “was one of the biggest scores of [Ford’s] life,” Ford told Bushwick Daily. Shortly after, Webster Hall called him back to DJ on Sundays and eventually led to him becoming their Technical Director for some time. However, by the 2000s, NYC nightlife began to fall apart.

In Ford’s words, “New York City nightlife was crumbling, after Giuliani had his assault on it, it took some of the heart out of it,” Ford explained to Bushwick Daily. “Then Bloomberg came along and turned this place into a billionaire’s paradise with all the gentrification. So that sucked out the soul”. Places like the Roxy and Limelight shut down after The Bank in the mid-2000s, once integral nightlife spots were no more. By 2010, there were almost no clubs left like the ones Ford DJ’d at.

With his frustrations at the developing NYC nightlife culture and his savings, Ian Ford pivoted in 2017 to creating his own safe haven for his kind of music and socializing: a former burned-down bodega that he named ‘Caffeine Underground’.

Ian Ford is an integral part of the Bushwick community. He provides generosity, great coffee at an affordable price, and a safe space to be yourself. Dan Erlband, who is roommates with Simon Wood, purchased a Caffeine Underground gift card for Wood after a major surgery. Erlband explained to Bushwick Daily that Ian Ford would “match whatever you put on the gift card for Simon, because I love him too, and I love having him around here”. Ford’s mother told him, “It’s what you experienced, who you loved, what you left behind and nothing else,” Ford shared with Bushwick Daily. “Yeah, that was on her deathbed. She told me that, and it had a profound effect on me”.

Eli Edwards
Eli Edwards
Eli Edwards is a photographer, writer, producer and director. Born in Los Angeles, Edwards currently resides in New York City drinking oat milk lattes, taking photos and shooting videos. Winning an Emmy Award while working for @NBAonTNT team as a social media editor to producing projects for Capture One and photographing work for Bayern Munich, Eli is versatile. Currently, he works as a freelance photographer, writer & producer for brands, events, music artists.

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