Fast-growing coffee drive-thru concept Biggby Coffee is opening several locations throughout Chicagoland, including a site in Valparaiso at 2020 Laporte Ave.
While the company already has over a dozen locations in Chicagoland, Biggby Coffee has at least another dozen planned throughout the surrounding area. Franchise owner Justin Neal tells What Now Chicago he expects to open the new Valparaiso location in late fall/ early winter. While Neal is a multi-unit franchise operator, he says this is the only location he is currently working on. Neal also owns locations in Chesterton, Michigan City, and Sawyer, MI.
There are several other upcoming sites in addition to this one. Separate franchise owners will bring the coffee drive-thru locations to Carpentersville, Des Plaines, Palos Hills, Evergreen Park, Highland, Plymouth, Goshen, Mishawaka, as well as a few Michigan sites in Buchanan, Berrien Springs, Watervliet. The nearly 350-unit coffee company finished last year with 71 new franchise agreements and 58 new stores and is on track to have 500 locations by 2024 and 1,000 by 2028, according to a press release.
“We are still 100% franchised, and that allows us to focus on our franchise owners,” Biggby Coffee’s Vice President of Emerging Market Development Tony DiPietro said in a press release.
This year already, the company has signed 27 new franchise agreements, with 13 new locations in the first quarter of 2023. DiPietro said the brand is focused on growing in Chicago, Memphis, Nashville, Atlanta, and Fulton County, Georgia; Virginia Beach and Rockingham County, Virginia; and in Raleigh, Charlotte, and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In addition, it is offering franchise opportunities in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Idaho, and Florida.
