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How Biggby Coffee works to compete with its giant competitors

A Deeper Dive: Bob Fish, co-CEO and co-founder of the Michigan-based coffee chain, joins the podcast to discuss the company’s strategy and whether customers will return to hanging out in shops again.

How does a small, Midwestern coffee chain compete with the big giants?

Bob Fish, the co-CEO and cofounder of Biggby Coffee, joins the Restaurant Business podcast “A Deeper Dive” this week to discuss the chain’s growth strategy.

Biggby is a 260-unit chain based in Lansing, Mich. The company has plans for some enormous growth in the near future after largely making it through the pandemic unscathed. It is doing this largely through a franchising model.

Fish talks about that growth. He also talks about the need to constantly change in a market where new trends come and go quickly. And he talks about the need for convenience—and why coffee chains could not survive on customers hanging out in cafes alone.

The coffee market overall continues to change and evolve, and more growth chains are staking their claim to a business dominated by Starbucks, Dunkin' and McDonald’s. It’s an interesting conversation with one of these players.

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