The Coffee Counter Upper Saddle River Kept When It Tore Down the Barns

"Sometimes he would tell you to just go pump what you need. He wouldn't even check." That is how someone remembered John Taylor, a New York haberdasher who lost his money in the 1929 crash and turned his racehorse barn on East Saddle River Road into a small store with gas pumps. The pumps were gravity-fed. You set a lever for the number of gallons you wanted, and it stopped there. People called the place The Little Store.

That property is now Elmer's Country Store at 359 East Saddle River Road. In 2026 it remains the clearest example of how Upper Saddle River runs. The borough's highway businesses are built for drivers who keep moving. The places people stop at, and the places the borough is now spending on, sit off Route 17 on East Saddle River Road, West Saddle River Road and Lake Street.

The Little Store Lost Its Barns and Kept Its Name

The Upper Saddle River Historical Society's "Lost USR" archive has the full chain of owners, and it is longer than most local businesses could claim. After Taylor, the Carlough family bought the property and set up John Paterson in the gas station. The archive says there "wasn't much in the store, just a few items." Paterson closed on Sundays to go home for lunch, and people waited for him to come back so they could get gas. The store closed during World War II.

After the war, Elmer Haring took it over and the name changed to Elmer's. By 1956 Ernest F. Papenhausen and his wife, Gerda Johanson, were running it with their family and living next door in the John Taylor house. Ernest was active in the Lions Club and the volunteer fire department. Ernest and Gerda moved to Arizona in 1967, and the store was sold to Schottmeyer Brothers Petroleum Corporation of Hawthorne. The Papenhausens kept running it, and their son Chris and his wife Linda took over in 1972. The Society describes them as "a well-known part of Upper Saddle River's daily life."

The building nearly changed before the name did. In 1968 the new owners asked for a variance, and the next year they submitted plans to replace the barns. The town committee turned the plans down. When the barns finally came down, it was on a design the town approved after working with the Historical Society. Some of the original clapboard siding was kept and now hangs inside the new store. More recent operators listed by the Society include neighbors Joe and Mattie Dobias, Joan and Dave Ballingall, and Don and Eleanor Kahrer. "The name Elmer's has remained to this day," the archive says.

The store's own website gives a different starting date, "Since 1982," and describes the business as family-owned and operated. Both dates hold up. The 1929 date marks when the site started selling things, and 1982 is the date the current business uses. The common thread is the location, plus a borough that wouldn't let the building be swapped for something generic.

What the Counter Sells Now

Today Elmer's lists breakfast and lunch grill sandwiches, paninis, heroes, hot-food specials, coffee, tea, groceries and catering. Its contact page posts regular weekly hours. A customer testimonial on the store's site calls it a local "traditional symbol" and says it is "famous for its BEC," meaning bacon, egg and cheese.

That mix matters in a borough this size. A food guide covering Upper Saddle River found no food business on Lake Street or West Saddle River Road. The breakfast sandwich, the quart of milk and the catering order all come from one counter on East Saddle River Road, in a building whose look the town had a say in.

Route 17 Is Built for People Who Keep Driving

The busier commercial strip is Route 17, and its newest addition shows what that corridor is built to do. On June 10, 2026, the Upper Saddle River Planning Board memorialized its approval of Ramsey Center II LLC's preliminary and final site plan and variance application for a 7 Brew drive-through coffee shop and a refrigerator shed at 207 Route 17 South. NJBIZ reported on June 16 that the Arkansas-based chain expected to open soon at that address. NJBIZ said the chain serves coffee, energy drinks, flavored sodas, smoothies, shakes and teas, and that 7 Brew does not offer indoor seating or food. A few days later, NJ.com listed the Upper Saddle River site among four new New Jersey lease signings and said all of those projects had municipal approvals.

As of early October 2026, the chain's New Jersey location finder lists ten other New Jersey cities and does not list Upper Saddle River. For now the stand is approved and on its way, not open.

A little way along the highway, Tim Hortons at 254 Route 17 North is operating, with ordering, hours and a menu on the chain's locator. The two coffee stops are on opposite sides of a divided highway, each placed for traffic heading one direction. That fits a corridor whose job is to serve people on their way through. The 7 Brew plan, with no seats and no food, carries that idea further than anything else in the borough.

Lake Street Holds the Calendar

If Route 17 is where Upper Saddle River sells to people passing through, the corner of West Saddle River Road and Lake Street is where the borough talks to its own residents. The May/June 2026 Borough Bulletin announced that a new electronic message board at that corner was finished. The details tell you who it's for:

• It runs from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. every day.
• Community and recreation organizations can apply for messages through the "forms" section of usrtoday.org.
• The borough asks for two to three days for messages to go up.

The borough put its newest public sign at this corner and not on the highway. The sign is close to the Upper Saddle River Library at 245 Lake Street and Lions Park at 236 Lake Street. USR Day 2026 was held at Lions Park on September 26. The fall calendar from here through December belongs mostly to the library:

The scavenger hunt needs no registration. Families can drop in any time during its four-hour window, and the library says children's programs give priority to Upper Saddle River Library cardholders. The dog costume contest is billed as an annual event open to adults and children, with prizes in many categories, and it uses an online registration form. Tai Chi and Qi Gong is on the calendar again on Tuesday, December 8, at the same time and in the same room. The library's December 3 afternoon movie is still listed as TBD.

The Next Lake Street Decision Arrives in November

Lions Park is next in line for public money. The borough held a public hearing on April 9, 2026, on an application to the Bergen County Trust Fund for a playground renewal. The plan would replace outdated equipment and worn-out surfacing with ADA-accessible play structures and new safety surfacing. The county set April 24, 2026, as the application deadline for this round. Its instructions say final approval by the County Commissioners is expected "by or about November 2026."

So far that is an application, not an award. No source reviewed for this post shows a grant decision or a construction start. The county's rules set the timeline if it is approved, because Trust Fund projects have to be finished within 24 months of the Commissioners' final approval resolution, and saving up grants for later is not allowed. An approval around November 2026 would mean a new playground at Lions Park by roughly late 2028. It would sit down the street from the library and the new message board.

In the same season, a drive-through with no seats is waiting to open on Route 17 South, while the borough's grant request, its new sign and its fall calendar are all on Lake Street. The store that started in a horse barn in 1929 still sells breakfast sandwiches at 359 East Saddle River Road.

Elmer's is still around because the town insisted its rebuild look like it belonged there, and that's the same thinking we bring to presenting a home in Upper Saddle River. If you're considering a sale and want a plan built on details like these, The Molfetta Team can walk you through it. Book a Consultation, or start with a home valuation and a look at our Upper Saddle River neighborhood page.