Dive Brief:
- Black Rock Coffee Bar raised $294 million on Friday in an initial public offering, the company said Thursday in a press release.
- The company commenced trading on Friday on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker symbol “BRCB.” It ended its first day of trading with its stock hovering over 37% above its IPO price.
- Black Rock Coffee Bar is the first coffee chain to go public since Dutch Bros issued an IPO in 2021.
Dive Insight:
Black Rock Coffee Bar, which owns 158 locations across seven states, has ambitious growth plans and expects to open about 30 stores this year, according to an S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company expects to reach 1,000 stores by 2035 and sees “ample white space in our existing markets to support this growth.”
It expects the future annual growth rate to be consistent with its historical average of 20% from 2020 through 2024.
“We expect to favor growth in markets where we currently have a presence while also taking a disciplined and methodical approach to enter new markets where we anticipate successful expansion to achieve our growth goals,” Black Rock Coffee said in the SEC filing.
The company has also expanded into new markets in recent years, opening its first location in Phoenix in 2017 and growing to 41 locations by 2024.
“Our whitespace opportunity extends beyond these existing markets,” the company said. “We have the brand strength, offering, portable unit economics, people, culture, and infrastructure to support our long-term expansion across the country.
Black Rock Coffee Bar’s unit growth
Black Rock Coffee Bar posted same-store sales growth of 10% during the six months ending on June 30, 2025, and boasted average unit volumes of $1.2 million, according to the SEC filing.
The company started as a 160-square-foot, drive-thru-only coffee bar in Beaverton, Oregon, in 2008. It has since evolved into drive-thru coffee bars with lobbies for dining room seating. About 75% of its coffee bars have lobbies as of June 30. The bulk of its product mix consists of coffee at 59%, followed by iced or frozen fuel drinks (the chain’s proprietary energy drinks) at 22%. Food makes up 11% of its product mix, followed by tea at 6%.
The coffee chain also built a robust digital platform and recent upgrades have allowed employees to be more productive during peak times. The company launched a digital loyalty program in June 2024 and that has since grown to 1.8 million members. Its rewards members make up 64% of transactions versus non-members. Digital made up 15% of store revenue as of June 30.
Black Rock Coffee could see the same success as Dutch Bros, which raised over $480 million in an IPO for a valuation of over $3 billion at the time.
Dutch Bros also has ambitious plans to build 1,000 shops within the next five years, reaching 2,029 open shops by the end of 2029. It also has a similar format as Black Rock Coffee with drive-thru formats and strong digital sales growth. It boasted systemwide same-store growth of 6.1% Q2 2025 during a time when other QSRs, like Starbucks, saw sales drop.
