A US coffee roaster which has developed a retail training and partnership concept with cafe businesses, has announced its first store outside the US.
Columbus, Ohio coffee roaster Crimson Cup Coffee & Tea has worked with a group of Bangladeshi businessmen to launch Columbus Coffee Shop in the city of Dhaka. It is the first in a planned chain of cafes across the country.
Partners Mohaimin Mostafa, Rehanur Rahman, Mirza Abdul Khaled and Tarek Rafi Bhuiyan have created an inviting space for Dhaka residents to enjoy handcrafted espressos, café mochas, lattes and other handcrafted coffee drinks. Several of the partners grew a passion for American coffee culture while studying in campus coffee houses as foreign exchange students in the US. Returning to Bangladesh, they saw an opportunity to capitalise on the growing popularity of American-style coffee in their predominantly tea-drinking country.
Mostafa and Bhuiyan enjoyed Crimson Cup coffee while studying at Ohio State University in Columbus. They reached out for support through Crimson Cup’s 7 Steps to Success coffee franchise alternative program. Based on Crimson Cup’s founder Greg Ubert’s book, Seven Steps to Success in the Specialty Coffee Industry, the program teaches prospective business owners everything they need to open a coffee shop. Hands-on consulting covers everything from writing a coffee shop business plan and finding the right location to choosing equipment, hiring and training staff, attracting customers and more.
After just nine months of planning and construction, they were ready to open the first in a series of coffee houses planned in Bangladesh.
Mostafa traveled to the Crimson Cup Brew Lab in Columbus to complete initial training. When Columbus Coffee was ready to open, 7 Steps Trainer Steve Bayless traveled to Dhaka to teach Columbus Coffee managers and staff about drink preparation and other aspects of operating a coffee house.
Columbus Coffee Shop offers a wide range of handcrafted hot, iced and frozen espresso drinks as well as hot and iced teas. Sandwiches and fresh-baked goods round out the menu. Customers can also buy bags of Crimson Cup beans to brew at home.
The 2000 sqft inaugural Columbus Coffee Shop is open from 11am until midnight daily on the second floor House # 25, Road # 11, Block H, Banani, Dhaka.
The next branches are planned for Dhanmondi, Uttara and Mirpur in Dhaka, and in Chittagong, Sylhet and Cox’s Bazar.
Crimson Cup Coffee & Tea, founded in 1991, has hand-roasted specialty coffee in Columbus, Ohio and taught independent business owners how to be successful through its coffee shop franchise alternative program, which includes a coffee shop business plan template. Sustainably sourced Crimson Cup coffee is available through a network of more than 350 independent coffee houses, grocers, college and universities, restaurants and foodservice operations across 29 states of the US – and in Bangladesh – as well as the company’s own Crimson Cup Coffee House cafe in the Columbus suburb of Clintonville.
