BETHLEHEM, Pa. – The husband-and-wife team behind a popular local doughnut shop is serving up a fresh batch of tasty treats at a new brick-and-mortar business in Northampton County.
Andrew Underwood and Annabel Figueroa, owners of Donerds Donuts shops in Bethlehem and Jim Thorpe, earlier this month opened Zen Cafe, offering hand-crafted, specialty food and drinks, at 3 W. Morton St. in South Bethlehem.
Zen Cafe operates at 3 W. Morton St. in south Bethlehem.
Ryan Kneller
The corner spot, across from Lehigh University’s Farrington Square at West Morton and South New streets, previously housed a location of cafe chain Saxbys.
Zen Cafe held a soft opening on Oct. 19, and a grand opening event with a ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned for 10 a.m. Monday, Nov. 2.
“Zen is a completely new concept, separate from Donerds,” Underwood told 69 News earlier this year.
“Annabel and I have always wanted to open a cafe and have been planning behind the scenes for a while. So, when this opportunity came up, we jumped on it. We’re very excited.”
Zen Cafe, with seating for around 30 guests, offers a wide array of food and drinks, including made-on-site scones, breakfast sandwiches, locally baked cookies, and specialty coffee, tea, and matcha drinks.
Breakfast handhelds, served on brioche or as a burrito, include options such as crispy hash brown with soufflé egg, cheddar, scallion, and house spicy mayo.
A wide array of fresh-baked goods includes made-on-site glazed cardamom buns and blueberry and Irish soda scones, along with sourdough cookies such as chocolate peanut butter, brown butter chocolate chip, cinnamon roll cheesecake, and s’mores from Lehigh Valley-based Saray Sourdough.
Guests can also enjoy signature sandos, made with Japanese milk bread, including Japanese egg salad (tamago), ham and gruyere and strawberry and cream.
“For the tamago, we’re going to use a special Japanese mayonnaise and a soft Japanese milk bread without crust,” Underwood said.
The cafe serves coffee from Devoción, a Brooklyn-based coffee roaster that sources coffee beans from Colombian farms in active harvest, Underwood said.
Guests can enjoy a wide array of coffee, including drip, cold brew, nitro and cinnamon toast cold brew, along with espresso drinks such as Americano, cortado, macchiato and lattes.
There are also signature coffee drinks (available hot or iced) such as Madagascar vanilla and toasted black sesame lattes, along with ceremonial grade matcha beverages (available hot or iced) such as lavender and salted caramel.
Other drink menu highlights include chai lattes, hot chocolate, Japanese and herbal teas, lavender lemonade and coconut ube cloud refreshers.
“[Devoción] is among the freshest coffee worldwide,” Underwood said.
“From the time that the coffee beans are cultivated at the farms to the time that they are roasted is only 10 days. That’s compared to at least 180 days or closer to nine months for most other roasters. It’s pretty incredible how different and better the coffee tastes.”
Zen Cafe operates during the morning, afternoon, and evening daily, with hours of 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
Seating is available at a variety of tables and lounge furniture.
Zen Cafe operates at 3 W. Morton St. in south Bethlehem.
Ryan Kneller
Underwood and Figueroa have been dreaming about opening a cafe like Zen for years and are excited to finally bring their vision to life.
“Every time we traveled, we would visit coffee shops, try new drinks, and get inspired by all the amazing places around the world,” Figueroa announced in a social media post.
“We always dreamed of bringing a little piece of those experiences to the Lehigh Valley. That’s how we discovered Devoción coffee during our trips to NYC, fell in love with the traditional preparation of matcha, and slowly started putting all our ideas together.”
Underwood and Figueroa are no strangers to the Lehigh Valley’s food and beverage scene, with their Donerds Donuts business garnering a large and loyal following over the past several years.
Donerds Donuts’ owners, husband and wife Andrew Underwood and Annabel Figueroa, originally started selling their doughnuts in 2015 out of a refurbished 1981 Volkswagen bus in Santiago, Chile.
Donerds Donuts
The couple originally started selling their doughnuts in 2015 out of a refurbished 1981 Volkswagen bus in Santiago, Chile.
Figueroa is a Santiago native, while Underwood is from New Jersey, and the pair met and fell in love while Underwood was traveling in the South American country.
The couple’s doughnuts exploded in popularity, leading them to open their first brick-and-mortar location in Chile in October 2019. Currently, two Donerds franchises operate in the country.
“There was an opening in the market as nobody was really doing doughnuts in Chile at the time,” Underwood previously told 69 News. “So, we decided to start making doughnuts, and it just grew really quickly from there.”
Donerds Donuts
Soon after their Chilean expansion, Figueroa and Underwood moved to Jim Thorpe, where they opened their first regional store in early 2021.
A second regional location opened in 2023 at 3 E. Fourth St. in South Bethlehem.
Customers can enjoy classics like glazed, Boston cream, and raspberry jelly, along with more unique varieties such as blueberry French toast, caramel churro, Oreo cheesecake, Nutella maple bacon, pistachio raspberry cheesecake, and peanut butter cup (covered with half chocolate and half peanut butter with a peanut butter cup in the center).
There are also seasonal specials such as hot cocoa in the winter, strawberry rose in the spring, Key lime pie in the summer, and apple cider pecan and pumpkin brulee in the fall.
The couple and their pastry chefs dub themselves “mad scientists” as they love creating new and exciting flavors.
Donerds’ catalogue of rotating doughnut varieties totals around 100, and customers can also enjoy made-on-site macarons and specialty coffee drinks, including caramel macchiato, pistachio cream iced lattes, and nitro cold brew coffee available in flavors such as caramel French toast, Snickers, and s’mores.
Donerds uses coffee from popular roaster Intelligentsia Coffee in Chicago.
Donerds Donuts operates at 3 E. Fourth St. in Bethlehem.
Ryan Kneller
In South Bethlehem, a Donerds Donuts shop is located a block away from Zen Cafe.
For the latest Zen Cafe updates, follow the business’s pages on Facebook and Instagram.
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