James Kim turned a long-vacant bank into downtown Rye's biggest café. He plans to have the doors officially open by the end of the week of Oct. 5.

RéUnion Bakery & Coffee, at 42 Purchase Street in the former TD Bank building, has been serving customers on a soft-opening basis after two years of planning, as first reported by the Rye Record. The space seats 84 people.

Kim grew up in the Rye area. His parents opened Belle Cleaners in Rye in 1984 and expanded to five other Westchester and Fairfield County towns before selling the business in the early 2000s. The family kept the Purchase Street property. Kim worked at the dry-cleaning business for years before moving to Southern California.

Now back in Rye, he has converted the modern bank shell into a café where customers can watch pastry chef Alexis Grea bake through a glass-walled kitchen at one end. At the other end, coffee beans are roasted in a room visible to the public. The old walk-in bank safe is now the restrooms.

"I am so glad to be back. It is so nice here," Kim told the Rye Record. "So expensive, but so nice."

The menu covers breakfast, coffee, lunch and soft-serve ice cream, with hours running early morning to late afternoon. Kim said a key goal is giving people a place to congregate. He hopes RéUnion will eventually grow into a chain, echoing the path his parents took with Belle Cleaners.

RéUnion joins at least six coffee-centered competitors in downtown Rye, including maman, Sunshine Coffee Roasters, Winfield Street Coffee, The Granola Bar, Le Pain Quotidien and Starbucks. Café maman opened its first Westchester location at 64 Purchase Street on July 23, drawing more than 400 customers on day one, according to the Rye Record.

That competition already claimed one business. La Petite Bretagne, a creperie at 3 Purdy Avenue that opened in September 2025, shut down the week before Oct. 5. Owner Jihaad Alyusuf said the nearly year-old shop had been breaking even, but with deep-pocketed competitors like maman arriving, it was not worth keeping open, the Rye Record reported. Alyusuf continues to operate the original La Petite Bretagne in Mamaroneck.

RéUnion's specific official opening date had not been confirmed as of Monday, Oct. 5. Kim told the Rye Record it should happen by the end of the week of Oct. 5.