The reasons for joining aren’t just economic. “Rather than thinking, ‘This is the rent,’ we look at this as a groundbreaking new community,” said Jonathan Rubinstein, who started Joe with his sister, Gabrielle, in 2003.

It’s also a response to loftier expectations. Not long ago, it was exciting to find a well-made espresso in New York; today, demanding customers want to taste something unique. According to Mr. Rubinstein, it’s no longer enough to order from the catalog of an established roaster and use the same coffee that everybody else buys. By roasting, Joe, Ninth Street Espresso and the other Pulley Collective members can take control of another link in the coffee-supply chain.

Joe is now buying green coffee beans directly from importers and, in some cases, farmers. Ed Kaufmann, the head roaster for Joe, expects to go through more than 225,000 pounds of green coffee in the next 12 months. It’s a fraction of the 2.7 million pounds that Intelligentsia roasts, and a rounding error for the industrial roasters that go through hundreds of millions of pounds a year, but it’s an impressive debut.

For Ninth Street Espresso and Joe, the Pulley Collective is a scaled-up roaster without any of the logistical headaches that would come with opening such a space in New York. They didn’t have to secure the site, hire a contractor or worry about the duct work.