GLY: A Business That Gives Back

The sense of welcome at the is palpable.

Perhaps it is the feeling of warmth as you enter on a cold winter day, the smell of coffee as it spurts out of the coffee machine, the aromas of pastries.

It’s the clientele as well: an elderly gentleman pulling a nylon string guitar from its case and picking out some classic melodies, a half-dozen friends socializing, a group of four in some sort of meeting , a young man pouring over schoolbooks, a young woman intent on the Internet.  

The café has that definite feel of those European coffee houses where the literati gathered or the ones in Greenwich Village or Cambridge, Massachusetts that defined distinctive movements in art, literature and music in the early ‘60s. 

“People are welcome here to do whatever,” proprietor Peter Holden said.  “It’s a better atmosphere than being in some stuffy room.”

The images create a sense of the ecumenical and that tracks with Holden’s outlook on life and whatever lies beyond. He named his café and the adjacent religious articles store GLY as the initials for “God Loves You.” How you come to God, however, is an open question, he said.

“We seek the truth through love,” Holden said. “We were given the freedom to choose how we love him.”  

Holden emigrated from The Netherlands in 1990 to work for an import/export company, whose owner had a home on Long Island. When Holden visited there, he found the attraction to the island was intense. 

“I’d been all over the world,” he said. “The north shore of Long Island was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen. They didn’t call it the Gold Coast for nothing.”

Soon he’d met the woman he’d marry, his wife, Liz, and he knew he would be staying, so Glen Cove was where they settled. 

He’d already put together then lost a considerable fortune before the age of 30, so he started his own import/export business from scratch. As his business improved he bought real estate, then opened the religious store, café and the Glyhop restaurant in the former Coles house, since closed. 

While his focus was on his businesses, he soon felt the calling to a higher power.  Declining to go into details – “It’s a long story” – he said his relationship with God is personal. But there was a strong sense that, as his commercial ventures became more and more successful, he needed to give back to the community. 

“We give all the proceeds from the store to those in need through churches and through City Hall,” he explained. 

Aside from the bricks-and-mortar store on School Street, there is a website with three principal sections: Catholic, Protestant and Jewish. The site also streams videos of special events going on at the store or café.