Almost as soon as Nestlé spent $425 million to buy a majority stake in hip coffee chain Blue Bottle in September, the search for the next hot coffee brand was underway.
San Francisco has a contender in Philz Coffee, a family-run coffee chain known as a darling of the tech industry. The company, which passed hands from father Phil Jabar to son Jacob in 2005, has grown from one cafe in the city's Mission District to over 40 locations in California and Washington, DC. Tech investors have poured $75 million into the chain to date.
Philz has the cash to fuel an expansion and a key ingredient to become the next Blue Bottle: individuality. It looks nothing like a cookie-cutter coffee chain. At Philz, a diverse set of customers sit around mismatched pieces of furniture and drink coffee brewed one cup at time. Employees are encouraged to express their personality through interactions with customers.
We spoke with Phil and Jacob to see why Philz has become a beloved institution.
Philz Coffee is the unofficial beverage of Silicon Valley.
According to Phil, Google, Twitter, Apple, and LinkedIn employees buy the beans wholesale for their offices. Facebook has a standalone location at its Menlo Park campus.
Facebook employees are currently beta-testing an order-ahead mobile app made by a team of engineers at Philz's headquarters in San Francisco's Dogpatch neighborhood.
The app will launch nationwide sometime in 2018.
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