Revelator Coffee Company is holding a subsequent step in its fast-paced expansion strategy by creation a vital merger in Atlanta. The Birmingham, Alabama-based association is appropriation Octane Coffee, boss Josh Owen tells Eater Atlanta. The understanding should tighten someday subsequent week.
Terms of a sale were not disclosed, though Diane and Tony Riffel, a wife-and-husband group behind Octane, will have some interest in Revelator’s success going forward. The Riffels will offer as advisors for an as-of-yet-undetermined volume of time as a dual companies transition into one. In a brief term, a Octane code will sojourn in existence. Owen expects Octane cafes to rebrand underneath a Revelator name and offer Revelator products “in a subsequent year, year and a half.” Director of coffee operations Sarah Kluth, who formerly spent 9 years with Chicago-based Intelligentsia Coffee Tea, sources beans from farms around a universe and oversees roasting during a trickery in Birmingham.
Revelator, corroborated by Berkeley, California, try collateral organisation Roble Partners, done a entrance with a Birmingham cafeteria in Oct 2014. In a two-and-a-half-years since, it has non-stop a roastery in a Magic City and stretched opposite a Southeast with 9 some-more locations in Birmingham, New Orleans, Atlanta, Nashville, Chattanooga, and Charleston. The initial Atlanta cafeteria opened in Westside in Aug 2015. That was followed by outposts in Midtown and inside West Elm during Ponce City Market.
The initial Octane cafeteria non-stop in 2003 in Westside. At a time, a area had not nonetheless turn a prohibited bed for restaurants and development. “We were super early for that partial of city and kind of wanted to see what happened, and it kind of developed over a expectations,” Tony Riffel says. Octane has stretched with locations in Grant Park, Buckhead, Midtown, and over Atlanta with dual Birmingham locations.
The merger effectively doubles Revelator in size. The association has “80 to 90” employees on a payroll, according to Owen, and it will overlay in another 75 on closing. Most Octane employees will have a choice to keep their jobs, though there will be some cuts due to redundancies. Revelator will work 17 cafes (15 opposite a Southeast and dual some-more in Massachusetts after recently appropriation Boston-based Wired Puppy Specialty Coffee Tea). With increasing shopping power, it will make a larger pull into wholesale. Revelator beans are accessible during 5 Whole Foods stores in a Southeast right now, and Owen says that series will burst to 40 after this spring. The association wants to do some-more business with hotels, restaurants, and smaller cafes.
Revelator will take a merger as an event to overlay Octane’s beer, wine, and cocktails to a business model. A centralized kitchen will launch as a approach to urge a food use during a cafes (although Little Tart Bakeshop, a apart business with a apart lease, will continue to work out of a Grant Park space it now shares with Octane). As a association grows, Revelator intends to turn a end for some-more business over a caffeine-obsessed.
“To be successful, quite in a South, we consider we have to be a liberality association first and a coffee association second,” Owen says. “This is about providing an knowledge to a customers, and that knowledge comes in a lot of forms.”
After opening their newest cafeteria in Midtown final August, a Riffels did not have evident skeleton for serve growth, and they were not looking to sell their company. They weren’t immediately sole on Owen’s representation to buy Octane, though on reflection, saw it as an event to safeguard something they combined would continue to grow. After pouring so most appetite into a business for some-more than a decade, a integrate will take some time off to recharge. While there are no organisation skeleton for a future, they’re staying in Atlanta, and they don’t intend to stay idle for long.
“Our minds are constantly relocating by ideas, so we’ll take a tiny mangle probably,” Diane Riffel says. “But we consider we’ll both be vehement to see what else we can try and do.”
• Revelator Coffee Is Sweeping a South [E]
• All Octane Coffee Coverage [EATL]
• All Revelator Coverage [EATL]