Seattle's Best Coffee LLC is a subsidiary of
Nestlé
Nestlé S.A. ( ) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland. It has been the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since 20 ...
whose brand is used to sell wholesale
coffee
Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...
,
ground coffee, whole-bean coffee, and coffee
K-cups. While this brand used to have coffeehouses in the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
, it no longer advertises them on its website. Some of these coffeehouses have converted to Starbucks while Starbucks previously owned this brand.
GoTo Foods owns the franchising rights for this brand's coffeehouses for international markets and military bases. Starbucks still roasts the coffee for this brand despite having sold this subsidiary to
Nestlé
Nestlé S.A. ( ) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland. It has been the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since 20 ...
in 2022.
Seattle's Best Coffee is generally less expensive than
Starbucks
Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational List of coffeehouse chains, chain of coffeehouses and Starbucks Reserve, roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gor ...
, its former parent, and is marketed as more of a
working class
The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...
coffee compared to the
upmarket Starbucks.
History
Seattle's Best Coffee began as a combination ice cream and coffee shop called the Wet Whisker in
Coupeville on Whidbey Island, northwest of
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...
, in 1969. Founder Jim Stewart purchased green coffee beans from local roasters to be roasted and sold at the Wet Whisker. By the end of the second summer, the shop had roasted and sold nearly 500 lbs (226 kg) of coffee. By the end of the following year, the Vashon Island Wet Whisker was sold, and Jim Stewart, along with his brother Dave, opened another ice cream and coffee store on Pier 70 on Seattle's
Waterfront. The shop was called Stewart Brothers Wet Whisker. In 1982, it began serving espresso based beverages alongside other coffee products.
In 1983, the name again changed from Stewart Brothers Wet Whisker to Stewart Brothers Coffee. Shortly after, business began to expand, and new shops opened in
Bellevue, Washington
Bellevue ( ) is a city in the Eastside (King County, Washington), Eastside region of King County, Washington, United States, located across Lake Washington from Seattle. It is the third-largest city in the Seattle metropolitan area, and the f ...
, and at Seattle's historic
Pike Place Market
Pike Place Market is a Marketplaces#Types, public market in Seattle, Washington, United States. It opened on August 17, 1907, and is one of the oldest continuously operated public farmers' markets in the United States. Overlooking the Elliott B ...
a year later. In 1991, the company was renamed "Seattle's Best Coffee" after winning a local competition.
Around 1995, the company was purchased by a group of investors who own
Torrefazione Italia. They formed a new company made up of both parties called Seattle Coffee Holdings. In 1997, Seattle Coffee Holdings changed its name to Seattle Coffee Company. In 1998,
AFC Enterprises purchased Seattle Coffee Holdings and began franchising the Seattle's Best Coffee brand. During AFC Enterprises' ownership, Seattle Coffee Company's
Vashon Island roasterie was upgraded and the company's organic coffee line was established. AFC Enterprises sold SBC to Starbucks in July 2003, retaining franchise rights in eleven countries,
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...
and U.S. military bases.
Starbucks closed the Vashon Island facility on October 23, 2003, and moved production to their
Kent, Washington
Kent is a city in King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington, United States. It is part of the Seattle metropolitan area, Seattle–Tacoma–Bellevue metropolitan area and had a population of 136,588 as of the 2020 Unit ...
, roasterie. SBC had previously stored beans at the
Port of Seattle
The Port of Seattle is a public agency that is in King County, Washington. It oversees the seaport of Seattle as well as Seattle–Tacoma International Airport. With a portfolio of properties ranging from parks and waterfront real estate, to ...
and transported them to Vashon for roasting, which was deemed insufficient for the company's needs. The historic Vashon Island roasterie building which includes Jim Stewart's original 1952 roaster, while no longer affiliated with SBC or Starbucks, was bought and reopened as "The Vashon Island Coffee Roasterie" when the owner of The Minglement, an organic foods, herbs, and spices store, decided to move her store to a larger store.
This store continues to employ Peter Larsen, the coffee roast master who worked at this store when it was previously part of Seattle's Best Coffee.
On October 18, 2022, Starbucks sold Seattle's Best Coffee to Nestlé.
Distribution partners
The
Borders bookstore chain signed a contract with Seattle's Best Coffee in 2004 to convert Borders' in-store cafes to Seattle's Best cafes. By 2006, approximately two-thirds of Borders' domestic superstores had completed the Seattle's Best conversion. Seattle's Best parent company
Starbucks Corporation
Starbucks Corporation is an American multinational List of coffeehouse chains, chain of coffeehouses and Starbucks Reserve, roastery reserves headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It was founded in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gor ...
has contracted with Borders' competitor
Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. The company operates approximately 600 retail stores across the United States.
Barnes & Noble operates mainly through its B ...
to sell its products in Barnes & Noble's Cafes. (Borders has since completely shut down due to bankruptcy.) Starbucks also owns and operates locations within
Chapters and
Indigo Books and Music bookstores in Canada.
Seattle's Best Coffee Cafes are found in larger
JCPenney
Penney OpCo LLC , Trade name, doing business as JCPenney (colloquially Penney's and abbreviated JCP) is an American department store chain store, chain with 649 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. It is managed as part of the Catalys ...
department stores when the company signed a contract in the late 1990s to have in-store cafés in department stores.
Seattle's Best Coffee Cafes and Kiosks can also be found on all 21 ships in the fleet of the cruise line
Royal Caribbean International
Royal Caribbean International (RCI), formerly Royal Caribbean Cruise Line (RCCL), is a cruise line founded in 1968 in Norway and organized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Group since 1997.
Based in Miami, Florida, it is the l ...
under the name "Latte-Tudes" or "Cafe Promenade". The presence of the Seattle's Best outlets on Royal Caribbean is also tied in with all other free-of-charge coffee items on the ship also being exclusively supplied by SBC. The Oasis class ships also have Starbucks outlet with the regular land price list, SBC is for-free (included in cruise cost)
On February 16, 2010,
Burger King
Burger King Corporation (BK, stylized in all caps) is an American multinational chain store, chain of hamburger fast food restaurants. Headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the company was founded in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacks ...
announced that they would add Seattle's Best Coffee to their menu in over 7,000 restaurants.
On May 12, 2010, Starbucks announced a rebranding of Seattle's Best Coffee, with a new logo and plans to expand Seattle's Best Coffee distribution from 3,000 locations to 30,000 by the end of the 2010 fiscal year. The rebranding of the Seattle's Best Coffee logo from the detailed, vintage logo to the clinical, generic design for the new mass market was met with much criticism, with the new logo being likened to a label for eye-drops, a blood-bank sign and a gas station logo.
On February 8, 2011,
Delta Air Lines
Delta Air Lines, Inc. is a Major airlines of the United States, major airline in the United States headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, operating nine hubs, with Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport being its ...
and Seattle's Best entered into an agreement to offer Seattle's Best Coffee onboard all domestic, international, and
Delta Connection
Delta Connection is a brand name under which Delta Air Lines has air service agreements with domestic regional air carriers that feed traffic to their network by serving passengers primarily in small and medium-sized cities in the domestic mark ...
flights beginning March 1, 2011. Since February 2015; however, Delta adjusted its coffee offerings in favor of Seattle's Best's then-parent company Starbucks on all flights.
The Swedish fast food chain
Max Hamburgers
Max, formally ''Max Burgers Aktiebolag'', is a Swedish hamburger chain founded in 1968 in Gällivare. , the hamburger chain had 155 restaurants in Sweden, 26 restaurants in Poland, eight in Norway and six in Denmark. The company had seven in E ...
ended its partnership with Seattle's Best Coffee and discontinued serving their coffee on November 13, 2019.
See also
*
List of coffeehouse chains
References
External links
*
{{Coffee in Seattle
1968 establishments in Washington (state)
1998 mergers and acquisitions
2003 mergers and acquisitions
2022 mergers and acquisitions
Coffeehouses and cafés
Coffee brands
Coffee in Seattle
Food and drink companies based in Seattle
Food and drink companies established in 1968
Nestlé brands
Retail companies established in 1968
Starbucks