Kaldi’s Expansion
Nov 27, 2007 coffee, general food
Kind of old news but Kaldi’s Coffee is expanding the empire
Here:
Kaldi’s Coffeehouse – Columbia
29 S. Ninth Street
Columbia, MO 65201
Phone: (573) 874-2566
And Here:
Kaldi’s Coffeehouse – Clayton (downtown)
187 Crondelet Plaza
Clayton, MO 63105
Phone: (314) 726-2900
I saw the one being built in Columbia and it was like the other branded chain-like ones.
The reason for continued expansion is that founders Howard Lerner and Suzanne Langlois sold their remaining 50% share of Kaldi’s earlier this year, and the former co-owners-gone-new-owners hope to continue Starbuckifying Kaldi’s successfully towards a current goal of 10 million in sales.
You can read an article in the St. Louis Business Journal here.
I read it a few months ago and forgot to comment, but the thing that struck me is that the article says they notified customers of the change of ownership. Talking to people in other shops around town, I’m under the impression few knew, so I’m curious if any readers might be regulars of a Kaldi’s (specifically the original Clayton location) and can confirm whether that was in fact the case.
Also, it will be interesting to see if Kaldi’s can continue to expand in the way the Zimmer’s hope while continuing to maintain semi-manual semi-automatic espresso machines on site. The green mermaid folded on that dream years ago.
For my take on Kaldi’s in general; that’s definitely for another post. I will tell you, however, that my main peeve with them has always been the issue of freshness with the coffee being sold in their shops. With upwards of thirty varieties on hand at any one time, it’s impossible to move through the coffee fast enough to keep it from staling. Add to that the fact the containers are not even air tight, and it’s a sad, sad tale.
Oh, and I’m not sure how I overlooked this for over a year, but Kaldi’s has a blog which you can read here.
edit: I changed semi-manual to semi-automatic…it was a quick typo on my part
Tags: Kaldi's Coffee, starbuckify
