Biggby Coffee facts for kids
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Biggby Coffee, East Lansing, Michigan
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| Private | |
| Industry | Restaurants |
| Founded | April 1995, East Lansing, Michigan, U.S. |
| Headquarters | Lansing, Michigan, U.S. |
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Number of locations
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370 (December 2023) |
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Key people
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Robert Fish, Co-CEO, Michael McFall, Co-CEO |
| Products | Coffee Tea and Herbal teas Made-to-order beverages Assorted food Bottled beverages Smoothies Merchandise Franchising |
Biggby Coffee (say "big B") is a coffee shop company from Lansing, Michigan, in the United States. It started in 1995 in East Lansing, Michigan. Bob Fish and Mary Roszel were the founders, and they first called it Beaner's Coffee.
By the end of the 1990s, the company had three coffee shops in Lansing. It began to grow a lot in the 2000s by letting other people open Biggby Coffee shops as franchises. Between 2007 and 2008, the company changed its name to Biggby Coffee. This was because the original name, "Beaner's," could be seen as offensive. The new name, Biggby, came from the big "B" in the company's logo. In 2023, there were over 370 Biggby Coffee locations across the United States.
History of Biggby Coffee
Bob Fish and Mary Roszel, who started Biggby Coffee, met while studying about hotels and restaurants at Michigan State University. They first worked together managing a restaurant called Flap Jack in Lansing.
Their first coffee shop opened in April 1995 in East Lansing, Michigan. It was in a building where an Arby's restaurant used to be. Because the first shop was so successful, Fish and Roszel opened a second one in downtown Lansing, Michigan, in 1997. A year later, they also opened a main office in Lansing. This office helped them sell coffee in bulk and prepare coffee.
Fish, Roszel, and Michael McFall decided to let other people open Biggby Coffee shops. Michael McFall had first worked as a barista (someone who makes coffee) in their very first store. In June 1998, they created a company called Global Orange Development, LLC to handle these new franchise stores.
A third Biggby Coffee shop opened in August 1999. It was also in East Lansing, about 2 miles (3.2 km) east of the first shop. Over the next four years, nine more locations opened across Michigan and Ohio.
In late 2007, Bob Fish announced that the company would officially change its name to Biggby Coffee by January 2008. They made this decision because the word "beaner" could be seen as an offensive term for Mexican people. Before this change, company representatives spent a year researching new names. They chose Biggby Coffee because of the "big B" in the company's logo.
In August 2012, Mary Roszel retired from the company after 17 years. Her university, Michigan State University, honored her for her success with Biggby Coffee.
Awards and Recognition
In September 2011, the TV channel CNBC said that Biggby Coffee was the fastest-growing coffee chain in America. They ranked the company number one based on how much it had grown from the year before.
Biggby Coffee's Growth
Biggby Coffee now has over 370 stores open in 12 different states. These states include Michigan, Florida, Kentucky, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Idaho, and Indiana.
In July 2011, the company introduced a "new store footprint." This plan helped reduce the cost of opening a new franchise location by about 40 percent. This made it easier for more people to open their own Biggby Coffee shops.
