By Oliver Strand
October 17, 2012
 |
James
Freeman with a Japanese-style siphon
at Blue Bottle Coffee in San Francisco.
Photo:
Peter DaSilva via The New York Times
|
Blue Bottle Coffee,
the respected California coffee micro-roaster that introduced the
Japanese-style siphon bar to San Francisco before
opening shops in Chelsea, TriBeCa, Rockefeller Center and Williamsburg,
Brooklyn, has a new owner.
According to a filing made with the Securities Exchange Commission,
Bryan Meehan is the new president and chief executive of Blue Bottle Coffee
Inc., heading a group of investors who purchased a controlling stake in Blue
Bottle Coffee LLC for more than $19.6 million. Kohlberg Ventures, which
invested in Blue Bottle Coffee in 2008, no longer has a stake in the company.
The news was reported
in TechCrunch, The Wall Street Journal and other news-media outlets.
Mr. Meehan is the
Dublin-born entrepreneur behind Fresh & Wild, a London chain of organic
markets sold to Whole Foods in 2004, and Nude Skincare, a line of natural
beauty products. He now lives in Marin County, Calif., and the Blue Bottle
Coffee investment group he leads draws from the Bay Area’s high-tech
executives. It includes Tony Conrad, a founding member of True Ventures and the
founder of About.com; Kevin Systrom, the co-founder and chief executive of
Instagram; Kevin Rose, a general partner at Google Ventures and the founder of
Digg; and Mike Volpi, a partner in Index Ventures, formerly of Cisco Systems.
But not all of Blue
Bottle’s new investors made their fortunes with keyboards: the skateboarder
Tony Hawk is listed in a post published on the True Ventures blog last week.
Reached on the phone
in Dublin, Mr. Meehan said that James Freeman, the founder of Blue Bottle
Coffee, would continue to occupy a central position in the company. “James
promised to me that he’s going to spend the rest of his life growing his
business,” Mr. Meehan said. “He’s the founder, and he’s still running things.
My role will be chairman of the board.”
Ownership and
management can be a touchy question in the coffee industry. Many respected
roasters were started by coffee enthusiasts who spent years pulling shots and
working long shifts. For some, selling a stake in a company is seen as an act
of disloyalty.
What happens after the
papers are signed depends on the company, of course. Last year, Stumptown
Coffee Roasters reached a deal with TSG Consumer Partners, a private equity
firm, and the company has steadily expanded since then. Then again, after Doug
Zell, the founder of Intelligentsia Coffee and Tea, announced last year that he
would become a co-C.E.O. with a former real estate developer, Robert Buono, the
company shed most of its senior staff.
Mr. Freeman, who is in
New York to promote his new book, “The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee,” said
the company he founded would remain the same, only with deeper pockets.
“I’m still going to
make decisions about where or if we open new shops, what the new shops look
like, what the new shops feel like,” he said. “I’m still going to be in charge
of what kind of coffee we should buy, how much should we buy.”
Mr. Freeman said that
he structured a deal that encourages him to remain with Blue Bottle Coffee.
Every year, his stake in the company will increase. “It’s an incentive to
stay,” he said. “I gave myself a really good job.”