Planning documents confirm that Dutch Bros Coffee is looking to add to its metro Atlanta pipeline with a new location planned for Roswell. The .46 acre site, 705 Holcomb Bridge Road, was for nearly 50 years home to a Captain D's restaurant before the seafood restaurant's closure this past November.
The new Roswell Dutch Bros. is still in the planning stages, but documents reviewed by ToNeTo Atlanta indicate that the new coffee shop will be built from the ground up.
The proposed Dutch Bros would be less than a half mile from where a new Starbucks opened in place of a former Pollo Campero in the revamped Roswell Village shopping center (609 Holcomb Bridge Road) in late 2019.
A typical Dutch Bros is drive-thru only (DTO) with about a 1,000 square foot building. Some also feature a 300 to 400 square foot patio.
The Dutch Bros beverage menu is diverse, with coffees, teas, sodas, smoothies, lemonades, and energy drinks, among other offerings, while its food menu is quite limited. According to the Dutch Bros website, the food selections (referred to as "Snacks") include only a chocolate chip muffin top, orange cranberry muffin top, lemon poppy seed muffin top, and a granola bar.
Brothers of Dutch descent Dane and Travis Boersma started the business as a pushcart in Grants Pass, Oregon in 1992. The company began franchising in 1999, and after growing to several hundred units, ceased offering new franchises as of 2017, although franchisees still operate some locations.
Dutch Bros became a publicly traded company in 2021 and trades on the NYSE under ticker "BROS."
ToNeTo Atlanta first reported in November 2023 that the company was looking to open its first location in the Atlanta market at 9630 Medlock Bridge Road in Johns Creek. It's unclear what the holdup was, but that location, as well as others planned for 2465 Buford Drive in Lawrenceville, 2695 Watson Boulevard in Warner Robins, and at 4545 Hugh Howell Road in Tucker are expected to open in 2025.
Christine Barone, a veteran executive of Starbucks and former CEO of True Food Kitchen, joined Dutch Bros as President in February 2023. Following the news that then CEO Joth Ricci was stepping down, Barone was named CEO in January 2024.
Dutch Bros stated in 2023 that it plans to have 4,000 shops nationwide in the next 10 to 15 years. To achieve this goal, the company plans to lean heavily on its predominantly DTO model. Dutch Bros has in recent years made inroads into Tennessee (28 units), Florida (13 units), Alabama (six units), and Kentucky (four units). Later this year, the company plans to also enter the Carolinas with locations in Summerville, SC and Charlotte, NC.
In early February, the company opened its 1,000th overall location with a new outpost in Orlando, Florida. The company stated in November that it will open at least 160 units in 2025. In March, at the company's annual investor day, executives announced plans to have 2,029 locations open by 2029, or to put it more simply, they plan to open more locations in the next four three years than they opened in the first three+ decades of the company's existence.
Dutch Bros is entering metro Atlanta at a time of tremendous competition and limited availability of prime locations. Drive-thrus - whether they be for coffee, burgers, smoothies, or chicken joints - are also facing increased scrutiny from cities and communities who connect drive-thrus' convenience with increases in traffic and congestion.
Industry titan Starbucks, also with a new CEO with something to prove, is constantly building, relocating, and most recently, renovating, Atlanta area locations, such as the Buckhead shop in Buckhead Landing, which it recently stripped to portions of two walls.
Meanwhile, new players such as Scooter's, Biggby, 7 Brew, Ellianos, The Human Bean, and Ziggi's, among others, are vying for market share. Even Caribou Coffee, which had gone through a retrenchment from the market, returned to growth in metro Atlanta with four new locations in 2024 and multiple additional units in development for 2025 and beyond.
Have you been to Dutch Bros Coffee? Who do you think makes the best coffee in Atlanta? Where else would you like to see Dutch Bros open?
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5 comments:
This is very disappointing. I was hoping for something different like Bonchon or Fazoli's ... I'd take a smaller BK at this point. We already have coffee ☕
Glad to see another coffee shop. Have enjoyed Dutch Bros in Montgomery, Alabama and it was super.
I think it's been closed a lot longer than November. I pass by there frequently and it seemed from September onwards, it wasn't too busy even though they had a "Help Wanted" sign out front.
Speaking of Holcomb Bridge does anyone know what is with the stalled construction of the McAllisters next door to the vet office? The current McAllisters was supposed to be moving from next door at Publix on Market Blvd to the new built location which used to be a Boston Market
Fazoli’s is garbage, and we might have coffee but we don’t have Dutch Bros!
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