BIGGBY® COFFEE vows to be first coffee company on the moon

Category: Company News

On the 50^th anniversary of the Lunar landing, BIGGBY® COFFEE vows to be first coffee company on the moon

East Lansing, MI, July 10, 2019– NASA plans for the Artemis program to put man on the moon again in 2024; Jeff Besos plans to put Blue Origin on the moon the same year; and, on the 50^th anniversary of the first moon landing, Michael McFall, co-CEO of BIGGBY® COFFEE, announces a goal of putting Moonboot Lattes on the moon, making one small step for coffee and one giant leap for the coffee industry.   

Earlier this year, Michigan Senator Gary Peters, along with Texas Senator John Cornyn, introduced the Advancing Human Spaceflight Act, making permanent human settlement of space a national goal.  In May, Jeff Besos, CEO of mega-tech company Amazon, announced that his Blue Origin project will launch a manned mission to the moon, making it the first-ever commercial moon landing. With this recent news, BIGGBY® COFFEE, the East Lansing, Mich.-based national coffee company, is setting its sights on being the first retail coffee franchise concept to set-up shop in space and has made initial contact with Amazon and Senator Peters to explore the concept.

“Shooting for the moon has always been in BIGGBY® COFFEE’s DNA, and now with the private and public sectors making advances in this direction, we are making it our goal,” said Jamie Stepanian-Bennett, BIGGBY® COFFEE Vice President, Brand Sphere. “The Co-CEOs often quote Buzz Lightyear’s ‘to infinity and beyond’. This sentiment guides our company, from our corporate culture focused on employee advancement to our bottom line goals focused on sustainability and growth.  And, we are taking preliminary steps to substantiate this slogan by being the first coffee company on the moon.”

BIGGBY® COFFEE opened its first coffee shop in Michigan in 1995, and has since grown to 236 stores in nine states, with 1,200 employees.  The co-CEOs, McFall and Bob Fish, started the company with a mission to change corporate culture in America through the way they help team members build a life they love, both inside and outside of the workplace.  One way in which they are doing this was through the creation of the Moonshot Guidebook, a 147-page guide for helping their team members live a life they love and shoot for the moon.

The company’s “shoot for the moon” culture extends from the people to its products, with drinks including the Intergalactic Creme Freeze, a perfect drink for a summertime celebration of the first moon landing, and Moonboot Lattes to take on the first caffeine-fueled mission to BIGGBY® COFFEE on the moon.

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BIGGBY^® COFFEE, East Lansing, Mich.-based, was started with a single store on March 15, 1995. One year later, and on the cusp of opening a second location, Bob Fish and Michael McFall, on a handshake and $4,000, decided to franchise the concept. BIGGBY^® COFFEE’s cultural values of Make Friends, Have Fun, B Yourself, and Share Great Coffee help coffee-lovers and the coffee-curious alike benefit from a less pretentious and fun approach to the standard gourmet cafe paradigm. Besides connoisseur-worthy drinks with pronounceable names like Teddy Bear^® and Caramel Marvel^®, BIGGBY^® baristas provide a unique experience focused on brightening their customers’ day and supporting them in building a life they love. The “Big ‘B’” on the orange background caught on, and today BIGGBY^® COFFEE has more than 230 cafes across 9 states and counting including Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Florida, and Texas. In 2018, BIGGBY^® launched an Area Representative Program and currently has 8 Area Representatives in 6 states.

For franchise opportunities with BIGGBY® COFFEE, contact franchiseinfo@biggby.com.