Summit Coffee Featured in Triangle Business Journal

as printed in the Triangle Business Journal by Laura Brummett on 2/10/2021.

A coffee roaster and retailer based in the Charlotte area is in the midst of a significant expansion into Southeastern markets and the Triangle is being targeted for multiple locations.

Summit Coffee, founded in Davidson in 1998, now has seven café locations currently open in North Carolina and six more under construction. Following a capital raise in 2020, the company is now aiming to expand with locations in each chosen market.

Summit has two locations in Davidson, two in Asheville, two in Charlotte and one in the Lake Norman area. Five of the six stores under construction are in Charlotte, with the other located in the Atlanta area. Expansion is planned in what Summit Coffee CEO Brain Helfrich calls a “cluster approach” in the target markets of Charlotte, Asheville, Atlanta and the Triangle. With stores already in the works in the other cities, the company is now committing to opening at least five stores in the Triangle by 2025.

“I like to say we function more or less as a startup,” Helfrich said. “We've gone from three cafes to 13, either open or in development, since the pandemic began.”

In Durham, Helfrich has his sights on the Central Park, City Center and American Tobacco areas of downtown. In Raleigh, he’s interested in Five Points, North Hills and Glenwood Avenue. Also on his list are Cary, Apex and Research Triangle Park. Though a franchisee has not signed on in the Triangle yet, Helfrich has seen interest, he said. Summit Coffee cafes are typically between 1,200 and 1,800 square feet and marketed toward young families, he said.

Of the 13 stores currently under the Summit umbrella, four are company-owned and the remaining nine are franchises. The company sold its first franchise in December 2020 and plans to continue down that path to keep ownership of the cafes local to the markets that they’re in, Helfrich said.

Despite 2020 being a devastating year for many in the food and beverage industry, Summit was able to end the year with revenues totaling about 85 percent of 2019’s numbers and an additional $1 million in funding. The company has been family-owned and operated since its founding and Helfrich, his brother and father are the majority owners. They sold 15 percent of their equity in exchange for the $1 million in capital, which was raised at the end of 2020 from a group of friends who were also investors.

Both the café and roasting sides of the business saw record revenues in 2021, marking the best year yet in Summit’s 23-year history, Helfrich said. He declined to disclose specific revenue figures. The company had four people on its leadership team two years ago and has now grown to 13, with 125 employees total. Summit has navigated the labor shortage well by offering all employees benefits, access to professional development classes and paying a living wage, Helfrich said. In Charlotte, employees make $17 an hour, he said. Benefit offerings include health, dental and vision coverage and retirement packages.

Summit Coffee has operated in the Triangle before, with a Chapel Hill café that was open from October 2020 to October 2021. The space, located at 140 W. Franklin St. and formerly occupied by Frutta Bowls, was left sitting vacant in 2020. Helfrich signed an agreement with the property manager to pay 40 percent of the normal rent in exchange for operating the coffee shop in the space for one year.

“It was a worthwhile 12 months for us in Chapel Hill, we got to study the market and learn how the Summit brand expanded,” he said. “In the last four months, we've come back to the drawing board and improved on some things, and now we're ready to reenter the Triangle market again.”

At the end of the agreement, Summit had the option to sign a 10-year lease in the space but declined, Helfrich said. While going back into Chapel Hill isn’t out of the question, Summit would choose a different area other than Franklin Street, he said.

“Things that make a great Summit location, and that a lot of our other cafes have that Franklin Street didn’t have are ease of parking and proximity to other restaurants and businesses that are drawing in the same kind of customers that we would expect to come into a Summit," Helfrich said.