With Biggby Coffee setting its sights on 10 locations in Georgia, two longtime fans are working to bring a location to their own community.
Michigan natives Tarin and Luke Tripp are currently seeking a location in Athens or the surrounding area for their own outpost of the coffee chain.
“We grew up with Biggby,” Tarin Tripp told What Now Atlanta. “It was a part of our lives, our preferred coffee shop. We always loved it. We moved to Georgia in 2010, and it’s been consistently one of the things we missed most about home.”
On a recent trip home to Michigan, during their customary first stop at Biggby Coffee, the wheels began turning: What if they brought the concept to Georgia? Things really fell into place when the Tripps did some research and learned that the company was looking to expand to the Peach State.
“It was a synchronicity of the universe, that they are trying to come to Georgia, and we wanted to bring something nostalgic to our current hometown,” Tarin said.
Biggby Coffee first opened in East Lansing, Michigan, in 1995, and the company began franchising a year later. The menu offers a variety of signature coffee beverages, along with energy drinks, tea, hot chocolate, smoothies and food items.
There are now about 379 locations of the concept across the U.S., including one in Roswell, Georgia. After successfully opening there in 2022, the company is now eyeing more growth in the state.
In a recent interview with What Now Atlanta, Tony DiPietro, Biggby Coffee’s vice president of emerging markets, said the Atlanta market is a great target for the company because of its mix of urban and rural areas: The concept can go into either a bustling area of the city or a smaller, more tight-knit town. There are a lot of possibilities.
Athens is among those towns on the docket, courtesy of the Tripps, and a location is also currently in development in Pooler.
The Tripps are looking forward to creating a space that both employees and customers are excited to go to.
“We’re really excited to create a small pocket in our community where people love to work and it helps them truly create a life they love,” she said. “Flowing from that, we hope to create a pocket in our community that is a space where people can come and meet and have interactions in our community together.”
Post-pandemic, people are really craving that connection, and they hope that Biggby Coffee can help provide it.
“We’re not doing this to bring another franchise to Athens. We want to be successful, but we are trying to add a benefit to the community that we believe in,” Luke said.
