Every Friday evening this summer, the triangular patio where Collingswood’s fire trucks once pulled out onto Collings Avenue fills up with a very different kind of crowd. Café 1903 hosts its Summer Sunset Sessions from 7 to 9 p.m., a recurring outdoor gathering built around zero proof cocktails, live DJ sets, and the kind of golden hour lounge atmosphere the café has been styling as Amalfi Coast patio vibes since it first opened its doors.

A Firehouse Built for This Exact Kind of Second Act

The setting itself does a lot of the work. Café 1903 opened this past March inside Collingswood’s historic former fire station on Collings Avenue, the first completed piece of a larger redevelopment plan for the building that will eventually include additional retail space and a private club concept as well. Rather than simply occupying the old firehouse, the café was designed to feel as though it had always belonged there, with garage doors that once let fire trucks roll out onto the street now opening directly onto the outdoor patio where the Sunset Sessions take place. Visitors pass through two distinct seating areas before even reaching the indoor ordering counter, an efficient use of a modestly sized footprint that makes the space feel considerably larger than its actual square footage would suggest.

That level of design intention traces back directly to who is behind the project. Mitch Gorshin, who also owns the attached Ends of the Earth cigar lounge next door, brings a professional design background to the space, having previously worked as a Disney Imagineer before returning to South Jersey. His father, Frank Gorshin, is remembered by television audiences as the actor who played The Riddler on the original 1960s Batman series, adding an unexpected thread of entertainment history to a coffee shop built inside a century old firehouse.

Why a Dry Town Leans Into Mocktails Instead of Missing Out

Collingswood’s status as a dry town, where restaurants and cafés cannot serve alcohol, tends to shape how local businesses approach anything resembling a nightlife scene, and Café 1903 has turned that constraint into the actual identity of its Friday events rather than working around it apologetically. The Sunset Sessions lean fully into a rotating lineup of crafted, alcohol free drinks, including watermelon mojitos, frozen piña coladas, and espresso martinis, giving guests the ritual and presentation of a proper evening cocktail without any of the alcohol a dry town’s regulations would prohibit anyway. Live DJ sets provide a low key, ambient soundtrack throughout the two hour window, and the café’s espresso program and pastry case, which sources baked goods from the nearby Dulce bakery, remain available alongside the mocktail lineup for anyone easing into the evening rather than treating it as a full night out.

The format fits neatly into a broader identity the café has built since opening, positioning itself as a European style third space rather than a straightforward morning coffee stop. For a town already well known for its dining and coffee scene, the Sunset Sessions give Café 1903 a distinct weekly draw that plays directly to the strengths of its restored setting, an outdoor patio built where a fire truck bay used to be, repurposed into exactly the kind of relaxed, unhurried space a Friday evening in South Jersey calls for.