"Peet's Coffee & Tea is a specialty coffee roaster and retailer. Founded in 1966 by Alfred Peet in Berkeley, California, Peet's has a devoted following, sometimes known as the Peetniks due to their strong customer loyalty to Peet's wide range of varietals and signature blends of coffee and tea. Peet's is especially known for its strong, deep roasted coffee.
Alfred Peet, known as the "grandfather of specialty coffee", started Peet's Coffee & Tea as a single store in 1966 in Berkeley, California. Peet's original outlet is still located on the corner of Walnut and Vine in Berkeley, close to the University of California (although it has been renovated to match the look of the newer Peet's outlets elsewhere). Peet grew up in the coffee business while living in Holland as a child. Moving to San Francisco, California, when he was 35, he began roasting coffee as he knew it. Peet's now roasts at a small plant in nearby Alameda-the only green coffee plant in the world. Alfred Peet died of cancer on August 29, 2007, at the age of 87 in his home in Ashland, Oregon.
Peet's was the original inspiration for now-rival Starbucks. The three founders of Starbucks knew Alfred Peet personally, founded Starbucks in Seattle, Washington, as kindred spirits, and bought the coffee beans for Starbucks directly from Peet's during their first year of business in 1971. Peet sold his business in 1979 but stayed on as a coffee buyer until 1983. In 1984 Jerry Baldwin, one of the original founders of Starbucks and Alfred Peet's former partner, and co-owner Jim Reynolds, the roastmaster, with a group of investors bought Peet's' four Bay Area locations. In 1987, Baldwin and Peet's owners sold the Starbucks chain to focus on Peet's, and Baldwin and Howard Schultz, Starbucks' new owner, entered into a no-compete agreement in the Bay Area.
Peet's has been much slower to expand than Starbucks, and has maintained more of its focus as a coffee and tea retailer, rather than a coffee bar, a distinction that has long separated Peet's from Starbucks. Peet's is still primarily a California operation, with a few stores in other metropolitan areas (see below) and a short-lived four-store partnership in Tokyo.
Peet's original store in North Berkeley, California.The company went public in January 2001 (symbol PEET). After a very successful IPO, shares struggled through the first year but have posted solid gains ever since. As of June, 2006, Peet's was listed as a competitor of Starbucks with a market cap of roughly $393M compared to Starbucks's roughly $5B.
In 2007 Peet's opened its new and completely green roasting plant in Alameda, California. This new roasting plant replaced the former operations in Emeryville, California, and is expected to provide enough roasting capacity to allow Peet's to double its current annual sales to about $500M per year." (
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