Argo Tea facts for kids
 |
|
Argo Tea headquarters on Randolph St. in the Chicago Loop
|
|
| Private | |
| Industry | Restaurants Retail Tea and Coffee Wholesale Tea |
| Founded | June 2003 at 958 West Armitage Ave. Chicago, IL 60614 |
| Founder | Arsen Avakian Daniel Lindwasser Simon Simonian |
| Headquarters | 16 West Randolph St. Chicago, IL 60601 |
|
Key people
|
Arsen Avakian, CEO |
| Products | Signature tea drinks Loose tea leaves Bottled beverages Coffee Teaware |
|
Number of employees
|
250 |
Argo Tea started as a chain of tea cafes in Chicago, Illinois, in June 2003. Its main office was in Chicago's Loop area. It grew to over a dozen spots in the Chicago area before opening in New York City in 2010. That year, it opened four locations there. Later, it expanded to St. Louis and Boston.
By October 2011, Argo Tea had 26 locations. Its products were also sold in over 3,000 grocery stores. The company grew a lot during its first ten years, right along with the popularity of tea. It began selling its products in grocery stores in 2010 and 2011. Arsen Avakian is the current CEO, which stands for Chief Executive Officer. By spring 2013, Argo Tea had opened a store in Beirut. It planned to add more locations in five other Middle East cities by the end of that year.
Argo Tea mainly sells many different hot and cold tea-based drinks. They also offer about 36 kinds of loose-leaf tea from around the world. Loose-leaf tea means the tea leaves are not in tea bags. You can also buy coffee, baked goods, small meals, and teaware like teapots. Their tea menu includes black, green, white teas, and natural herbal teas. These are served hot or iced.
Argo Tea has a special partnership with Whole Foods Market to sell its products. Bloomberg Businessweek says that Argo's special foods include pastries, sandwiches, salads, and quiches. Argo wants to be seen as a modern and eco-friendly brand. They also used to sell audio CDs.
In 2020, Argo Tea started selling bottled tea in stores like Walgreens. They decided to focus on these ready-to-drink teas, which came from their most popular cafe drinks. Golden Fleece Beverages, Inc. bought the Argo Tea brand. Golden Fleece continues to run the business as Argo Tea. You can buy loose tea leaves online.
The Story of Argo Tea
Argo Tea wanted to be like the Starbucks of tea. The company began in 2003 with three partners: Arsen Avakian, Simon Simonian, and Daniel Lindwasser. Arsen and Simon were friends from childhood in Armenia. They moved to the United States in the 1990s. Simonian is a computer scientist, and Avakian is good at starting new companies. They teamed up after the dot-com bubble, which was a time when many internet companies failed. Avakian first came to the U.S. as a Fulbright scholar. Lindwasser is from France and moved to the U.S. in 1997. He used to be a business consultant. Arsen Avakian's father, Yuri, has many patents for wind and solar technology.
The first Argo Tea cafe opened in June 2003. It was about 900 square feet and had 24 indoor seats and 20 patio seats. It was located at 958 West Armitage Avenue in Chicago. This was the first tea cafe in the Lincoln Park area. It was even across the street from a Starbucks. Argo got its name from the story of Jason and the Argonauts in Greek mythology. The founders paid for the first store themselves, using their own credit cards. They did not have outside investors. Chicago architect Mark A. Cuellar designed the early Argo cafe interiors.
.JPG)
At first, the company tried selling dry boxed tea at Whole Foods. But they quickly changed their plan. Just six months after opening, Argo was already planning to open more stores in Chicago and other cities. In late 2004, Argo signed a lease for its first store outside the original location. This was at Loyola University on Rush Street. By early 2006, there was a third location in the Loop area on Randolph Street. A fourth store was also on the way.
In March 2006, Argo opened a small tea stand, called a teaosk, on the South Side of Chicago. This was at the University of Chicago Medical Center. By 2007, the company decided to make sure all its locations were consistent. They started brewing their tea in a central place. After five years, Argo Tea had 10 locations, all in Chicago. Many of these early cafes were near Starbucks stores. Argo thought that Starbucks was helping to make tea more popular. By February 2009, all 13 of their locations were still in the Chicago area. In July 2011, Argo became the first new retail tenant in the Tribune Tower in six years.
_en_2010_desde_el_Empire_State_crop.jpg)
Argo opened its main New York City store in January 2010. It signed a 10-year lease in the famous Flatiron Building. Soon after, it opened stores in the Chelsea neighborhood and at Columbus Circle. In total, Argo opened four cafes in New York City in 2010. They took advantage of the late-2000s recession, which allowed them to get great locations at good prices. These spots included Union Square and the Flatiron District. In May 2011, the company added its fifth tea room in New York City.
By 2010, the company changed its goal of being the Starbucks of tea. Arsen Avakian said, "Starbucks is more like Windows PC—it's old, less healthy and designed for everyone—and we want to be more like Mac: young, healthy, cool and a more unique, innovative brand." Avakian said the company hoped to build the Apple of tea. At that time, Argo was opening its 18th store (14 in Chicago and 4 in New York). It had $10 million in sales each year. This made it the largest tea-focused chain.
In 2011, the San Francisco Chronicle said Argo was the company that started the 21st century tea shop revolution. Time magazine wrote that Argo had gotten America to drink tea. By 2011, the U.S. market had over 3,000 tea rooms. This was according to the Tea Association of the USA. Between 2006 and 2009, coffee drinking went down by 2.3 percent in the United States. Tea drinking, however, went up by 4.5 percent. The rise in tea popularity even made Starbucks remove the word "coffee" from its name and build its Tazo tea brand.
By early October 2011, Argo had 26 locations in four cities: Chicago, New York, Boston, and St. Louis. Its products were also sold in 3,000 grocery stores across the country. These included Whole Foods, Safeway, and Dominick's.
When the lease for the original location ended on April 30, 2013, the company did not renew it. However, Argo opened a new "greenhouse" store with mostly glass walls near Rush Street the next month. By March 2013, bottled drinks, which they started selling in 2010, made up 20% of the company's business. At that time, Argo Tea had opened a store in Beirut. It planned to open one in Doha in April 2013. It also planned to open more Middle East locations in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Kuwait, and Riyadh in 2013. By September 2013, the Doha store was open, and a second Beirut location also opened that month.
In 2020, Argo Tea changed its main focus from cafes to selling bottled tea drinks. Golden Fleece Beverages bought the company. Argo made a deal with Walgreens to sell its bottled teas there. The company still uses the Argo Tea name. Argo Tea is currently the tenth largest seller of tea in the U.S.
What Argo Tea Sells
Tea is the second most popular drink in the world, after water. Argo Tea was started because its founders realized that Americans did not know much about tea beyond tea bags. At that time, most tea sellers either sold loose tea for home brewing or offered traditional sit-down tea service. Argo, however, focused on special, high-quality drinks served in paper cups. Argo wanted to show how healthy tea is as an alternative to coffee. When it was founded, Argo was part of a group of new tea cafe chains meeting a growing demand.
Argo started with 35 different teas from around the world. These included black tea, green tea, and chamomile herbal tea, as well as more unusual teas. From the beginning, they offered a mix of traditional Asian teas and teas from exotic places. One of the company's main drinks came from a trip to Ipanema beach in Rio de Janeiro. There, Avakian paid a juice bar owner to close his shop so he could try out different flavor mixes. Several of Argo's teas are seasonal. One of their special drinks is the "teappuccino," which is a black tea mixed with steamed milk and froth. The company has even trademarked this name.
The menu uses new types of specialty teas that can be sweetened or spiced. They can also be mixed with milk, sparkling water, or fruit juices. In its early years, popular drinks included Bubble tea, Pomegranate tea, Mate Latte, Chai tea with milk, and Tea sangria.
In its first few years, the company sold illy brand coffee. While Argo imports its teas from all over the world, it now brews its teas at a central location in downtown Chicago. Argo started by selling loose tea in 1-ounce and 4-ounce bags, or in bulk. One of Argo's Americanized drinks is a version of mate, which is the national drink of both Argentina and Uruguay. Argo serves it as a Mate Latte. By 2010, the company started selling bottled specialty teas in grocery stores in Chicago, like Whole Foods. They planned to have their own bottling facility. By the time the company opened its New York locations, it offered fair trade certified coffee. In 2011, the company expanded its bottled tea distribution to grocery stores across the country.
According to the company's press release for its 20th location opening in 2011, the menu included "all natural tea-based signature drinks, over 30 varieties of loose leaf teas, fair-trade organic coffee, fresh-baked pastries, specialty foods, and a selection of teaware and accessories." The special drink menu had healthy and unique choices. These included Maté Laté with earthy mate, almond, and milk. Other options were Green Tea Ginger Twist with Japanese green tea and ginger root, and MojiTea with cool mint tea and lime juice. The food menu had many fresh-baked pastries, French quiches, and special foods made with tea-infused ingredients. These included Teanie Panini, Tea Bites, and wholesome Teapot Grains. Argo Tea’s ready-to-drink bottled beverages could also be found in grocery stores. Bloomberg Businessweek said that Argo Tea wants to show that tea is a healthy drink and a lifestyle choice. They want to create unique, all-natural tea drinks and offer customer experiences that show modern design and care for the environment. The teaware and accessories include teapots, high-tech tea infusers, and many kinds of tea cups.
Argo Tea's Community Efforts
Some people disagree about the health effects of tea. However, Argo Tea believes in the health benefits of tea. They support its use in research. Argo Tea has given a lot of white teas, which have many antioxidants, to the University of Chicago Hospitals. Because of this donation, the University of Chicago invited Argo to open a small stand inside the hospital lobby. The company also holds tea seminars with Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. These seminars help people learn about the possible health benefits and research ideas for tea.
Argo Tea supports sustainability. This means they care about the environment in their business plan. They also give money to charities to help with research, as mentioned above. The company has an environmentally friendly business plan. This includes encouraging customers who eat in to use reusable items like ceramic mugs, plates, and washable silverware. Argo also sells reusable tea tumblers. Customers who use these get a discount on their drinks. The company thinks about sustainability and caring for the environment in all parts of its business. This includes choosing suppliers, how they operate, store design, and product decisions.
Company Information
Even though the company started in Lincoln Park, its official business address is at its third location in the Loop. This is at 16 West Randolph Street, Chicago, IL 60601. Most of the company's employees work part-time. However, they offer medical benefits to employees who work 20 hours or more per week. By September 2008, Argo Tea had about 200 employees.
Despite its many menu items, by 2011, 80 percent of Argo's $15 million in yearly sales came from tea drinks.
In August 2011, Chicago Alderman Brendan Reilly gave control of Connors Park to Argo Tea. This was for the company to build a 1200 square foot store there. The Chicago Park District had not taken care of the park, and it had become run down. In exchange for a 15-year lease, Argo agreed to take care of the park. The business opened its store in the park, which looked like a greenhouse, in late May 2013.
