The Midwest coffee mergers continue to march toward a singularity, but this time it’s not from who you might think, nor is it staying contained to the American heartland. St. Louis, Missouri’s Kaldi’s Coffee they are merging with Olympia, Washington’s Dancing Goats Coffee.
The announcement came this week that the two brands would join forces, presumably coalescing around their shared love of naming companies after coffee’s origin story and Atlanta cafe outposts. As part of the merger, all eight Dancing Goats Olympia and Atlanta-area cafes and the Olympia roastery will continue under the Dancing Goats brand. But the Dancing Goats Atlanta roastery will now shift to producing coffee under the Kaldi’s moniker, working alongside the already-established St. Louis roastery. The 15 Kaldi’s Coffee cafes in Missouri and Georgia will go unchanged.
The two companies have a combined 64 years in the coffee industry, starting in 1988 and 1994 for Dancing Goats and Kaldi’s, respectively. Both have been family-owned since their beginnings and the merger results from “a long friendship” forged over the decades in coffee.
“We were two families with the same dream decades ago, and today we’re proudly one company, united in our shared values and our passion for quality,” states Kaldi’s co-owner Tricia Zimmer Ferguson. “Together, the combined experience of our coffee professionals equips us to continue Dancing Goats’ pioneering legacy while building a successful future together.”
The real-time effect of the merger on the overall customer experience is minimal. All Atlanta-area Kaldi’s will begin serving coffees from the new Atlanta roastery, blends in particular, per the statement. Meanwhile, all southeastern Dancing Goats locations will now sell Kaldi’s whole-bean coffee.
For more information, visit Kaldi’s Coffee’s official website.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
If you read this article and wondered, “But what of Batdorf?!” you can read more about the 2022 Dancing Goats sunset of the Batdorf & Bronson brand-name here.
