Perhaps one of the most unique aspects of this cutting-edge micro-roaster of organic and shade-grown coffee, is Freeman’s visionary eye for identifying real estate with distinctive architectural elements that possess the potential to revitalize and awaken the local community, inspire people to venture out and explore the possibilities of a new day, a new beginning — just like a great cup of coffee. The Blue Bottle Coffee Company has not only revitalized and invested in otherwise forgotten inner city neighborhoods, but has created new career opportunities and jobs for over 60 local residents to date — a perfect blend for Inner City Advisors (ICA).

The Blue Bottle Coffee Company first met ICA in 2007 with an array of business needs that were a reflection of their rapid growth, as well as Freeman’s desire to tap into external business expertise that would provide additional advice and guidance to enable his thriving enterprise go to the next level:

- Manage the increase of human resources and operational need
- Increase efficiency with cash-flow management
- Identify and raise additional capital to fund growth

The relationship between The Blue Bottle Coffee Company and an ICA Advisor started with a detailed review of their profit & loss statement and accounting practices. The support didn’t stop there. The ICA Advisor also provided guidance and direction in the areas of finance, human resource management and operations. Most importantly, the ICA Advisor introduced Freeman to an investor who would eagerly fund their much needed and desired expansion – thus resulting in the opening of the new production facility and the creation of 35 new jobs.

Today, The Blue Bottle Coffee Company is proudly serving their java loving customers in 8 locations across the East Bay, San Francisco and in New York, with almost 200 employees. Like the 17th century Franz George Kolshitsky’s The Blue Bottle coffee house —- The Blue Bottle Coffee Company is transforming history one cup at a time.

Blue Bottle Aims to Blend Slow Coffee, Fast Growth
By IAN SHERR, Wall Street Journal

In an era of fast-food cappuccinos and drive-through coffee shops, Blue Bottle Coffee Co. is banking on slowing things down to help itself grow.

Annie Tritt for The Wall Street Journal
Blue Bottle Coffee CEO James Freeman, center, and employees taste coffee at his facility in Oakland.

Since the Oakland-based coffee company’s founding in 2002, its revenue has jumped an average of about 50% annually to between $15 million and $20 million last year, according to James Freeman, founder and chief executive. As the company continues to expand—with plans to enter Manhattan in the next month of so—Blue Bottle could have more than 200 employees by the end of this year, up from about 70 two years ago.

Blue Bottle’s concept is slow coffee, an unusual offering in today’s coffee-retail industry. Brewing a cup of Blue Bottle coffee is a laborious process that can take up to five minutes, including the time it takes a barista to grind the beans and pour the grounds into a filter suspended above a cup before water is added on top.

The process takes substantially more time than it does to get a typical cup of coffee from shops like Starbucks, raising questions about how many customers would be willing to wait for a cup of joe from Blue Bottle and whether they can taste the difference.

But so far, this slow style—which Mr. Freeman says has become popular in Britain in recent years—has helped Blue Bottle and rival Bay Area practitioners of the art, like Ritual Coffee Roasters, develop a devoted customer base.

“It’s really excellent” coffee, says Jayn Pettingill, a local 48-year-old musician and music librarian. She says she buys only Blue Bottle beans for coffee at home because the company delivers the most consistent good taste she can find.

Still, Blue Bottle faces the usual limitations of an artisan food business. Its coffee is pricey, with a standard 12-ounce cup costing about a dollar more than the roughly $1.65 charged at Starbucks.

Alexander Slagle, an analyst at Jefferies & Co., says customers who would switch to higher-end coffee from Starbucks-type shops are mostly found in cities like San Francisco, New York and Chicago. “I don’t expect to go to other markets very quickly,” he says.

This is borne out by Starbucks’s own version of slow coffee, which it makes with a machine it calls Clover. In the four years since Starbucks acquired the machine’s technology, it has rolled out the device to more than 200 of its stores.

“It’s about being deliberate about where we offer the Clover brewing system,” said Marianne Duong, a Starbucks spokeswoman, who added that a 12-ounce cup starts at $2.95, a little more than Blue Bottle’s price. “We want to make sure it’s in the right store, and that customers are asking for it.”

Mr. Freeman, a native of Northern California who began Blue Bottle after he “washed out” of playing the clarinet in local symphonies, began serving his first cups of slow coffee at a local farmers’ market in 2002, relying on a small batch roaster for his beans. Blue Bottle’s name is an homage to Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki, who became a hero in Vienna in the 17th century for his role in fending off an invasion by the Ottoman Empire. He used the money he was given for helping save Vienna to open a coffee shop whose name roughly translates to “House to the Blue Bottle.”

Mr. Freeman, now 45 years old, spent nearly $40,000 to start his business in 2002; lines at the farmers’ market began forming a couple of years later. “One day, I looked up and there were 15 people in line,” says Mr. Freeman, who has made organic bean blends sourced from such far-flung places as Sumatra, Indonesia, Panama and Hawaii. “It’s been like that ever since.”

Blue Bottle opened its first retail location, a kiosk in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley, in 2005. The company has now opened a total of seven cafes and kiosks around San Francisco, Oakland and Brooklyn, N.Y. In 2008, the company took on an equity investment of more than $1 million to help fuel its growth.

The company has been striking wholesale agreements with places like cafes and bookstores, and now has between 150 and 200 such deals, roughly double from two years ago.

Blue Bottle rigorously trains its new recruits. New employees go through two to three weeks of training to learn how to expertly make espresso, pour coffee and mix the right amount of milk with their drink. Then the java rookies work and shadow employees on the job before performing in front of a “jury” of Blue Bottle employees to ensure they understand how to properly make and serve coffee.

Baristas at partner cafes go through training with Blue Bottle as well. Sarah Rosedale, a manager at Readers Café & Bookstore in San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center, says Blue Bottle extensively trained her employees to serve coffee the right way. In the two years since the nonprofit bookstore opened its cafe, coffee has grown to represent three-quarters of its sales, with some of the proceeds supporting local libraries.

“It’s the artisan coffee in demand,” Ms. Rosedale says.

Mr. Freeman says the company is also now developing a bottled coffee drink that can be sold in grocery stores. Blue Bottle has been testing it in various locations but is still tweaking the recipe and hasn’t set a target date for an official launch. “Our first priority is to make a delicious product,” he says.

Write to Ian Sherr at ian.sherr@dowjones.com

Yesterday, ICA’s own Prather Ranch Meat Co. was featured by SF Weekly’s SFoodie section (@SFoodie). Prather’s offshoot, The American Eatery, located at the SF Ferry Building, takes an integrated whole-animal approach to making deliciousness, which most modern butchers don’t do.

Read the article below:

SFoodie
The American Eatery Makes Deliciousness From Every Part of the Beast
By Ben Narasin

If you’re a hardcore foodie –and why else would you be reading this?– it’s likely crossed your mind that the French, and most old world cuisine extremists, don’t waste any part of the animals they butcher. And they make it glorious while they’re at it. Tête de veau comes to mind (pun intended).

Prather Ranch takes the same approach, and delivers similarly exceptional, if more rustic, results in its American Eatery restaurant adjacent to its new butcher shop digs in the Ferry Building.

To Doug Stonebreaker, Prather’s founder, the Eatery is a natural extension to his approach to butchery. “I always thought this would be our model,” he says, “an integrated, whole-animal approach.”

Indeed, Prather Ranch deals with every part of the animal, unlike many modern day butchers and markets that just order in a case of rib eye. Most customers tend to order the most familiar cuts, so some perfectly good meat remains hard to move. Enter the Eatery, where Prather’s butcher shop feeds the menu.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

LIKE Prather Ranch Meat Co. on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/pratherranchmeatcompany

“For the first time, the Business Times is honoring standout leaders under 40 years old making a major impact on the Bay Area’s economy, community and culture by employing innovation, business and technical acumen and a lot of hard work.” — Lindsay Riddell, Reporter – San Francisco Business Times

Revolution Foods has reached a level of success that is unprecedented in the ICA Portfolio. Their story is a daily reminder that instills confidence in our entrepreneurs, proving that your business can have a significantly positive impact on the inner city as it grows in size and scale. We are proud to share the news that Revolution Foods CEO & Co-Founder, Kristin Richmond, has been selected to receive one of the 2012 Emerging Leaders Awards for the San Francisco Business Times’ ’40 Under 40′ awards event.

By leading with their value system, combined with a strong commitment to their employees, we expect that Revolution Foods will continue to create quality inner city jobs as they expand.

“Join the San Francisco Business Times for their 1st annual ’40 Under 40′ awards event as they honor the 2012 class of honorees. These outstanding CEOs, entrepreneurs and top executives are making a difference in the local business community and will continue to do so well into the future. Come meet the class of our region’s most promising young talent.”

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 7, 2012
Levi’s Plaza Atrium – 115 Battery Street, San Francisco
5:30PM – 8:30PM – $125 per ticket or $1500 for a group of 10 tickets
Register at: http://www.sanfranciscobusinesstimes.com/event/37501
For more information on this event, please call Jacquie Bischoff at (415)288-4972 or email at jbischoff@bizjournals.com

Back in September of 2011, ICA ran a campaign to recruit new entrepreneurs into the ICA Portfolio. We added over 100 new small businesses to our network, received dozens of applications and tailored our selection to 3 innovative, high-impact entrepreneurs. This bodes well for the Bay Area, as the growth of these small businesses stands to make a positive impact on creating good jobs for the residents that need them most.

Over the coming days, we’ll describe more details about our selection process, what ICA looks for in an ideal candidate, announce each of the three new companies, and tell you the stories regarding their engagement with ICA.

Stay tuned in to these announcements, because the ecosystem of support that we all build around these companies will be critical to their growth. Thank you for continued support of ICA.

Cheers,
The ICA Team

In our ongoing effort to increase the success of sustainable, responsible entrepreneurs and small businesses, ICA has good news to announce next week. Stay tuned.

By now the news is widespread that the New York Times named Oakland the #5 place in the world to visit in 2012. By and large, we believe that a national nod brings a perceivable boost to a DIY city fraught with serious problems, but full of promise and people that have worked resiliently to maintain and improve the quality of life here. With respect to these kudos–and in light of our tireless, collective investment in this city–the people of Oakland, CA should not take kindly to a reductionist paragraph with appeasing disclaimers, as if name brand newcomers work like Xanax to calm tourist jitters. The Oakland Art Scene Examiner and 38th Notes made poignant follow-up critiques along similar lines.

Let’s be clear. Oakland has been, and always will be, a self-determined city. What makes this city great is the simple fact that it is home to the full spectrum of humanity, unabashed in all its ugliness and virtue. This full range of frequencies reverberates in an unparalleled mixture of culture, with an authenticity that feels no need to congratulate itself. This is a vanguard city, regaining its footing after the blow of deindustrialization and disinvestment, with distinguished models for how to overcome the nation’s and the world’s most pressing challenges.

Our work at Inner City Advisors focuses squarely on increasing the success of entrepreneurs and small businesses so that they can create jobs in the neighborhoods hit hardest by political and industry neglect. With full consideration to the total complexity of human beings that live in Oakland, we highlight the innovative, responsible entrepreneurs and the ecosystem of support that we are building around these people, as a vital part to the future success of this city. This makes Oakland a great place to live, work, play and visit.

That includes (but is certainly not limited to) small businesses like Ed Support Services, Back to the Roots, Merriwether & Williams, Outsource Consulting, Revolution Foods, Juniper Ridge, Give Something Back Business Products, Blue Bottle Coffee Co. and strategic partners like the East Bay Community Foundation, as evidence that Oakland is the place to reside, not just visit.

And now that Gertrude Stein’s “no there, there” myth has been dispelled, we created the Twitter hashtag #whyoakland, so that you can sound off in support of this great city. Join the conversation below.

Each year the 17,000+ Winter Fancy Food Show attendees discover more than 80,000 products featuring the world’s finest foods and beverages from more than 1,300 exhibitors representing 35+ countries.

ICA Staff will be attending the Fancy Food Show today to support ICA companies, and also to meet new companies. Keep an eye out for us and come say hello.

All of the show details can be found at the following link: http://www.specialtyfood.com/fancy-food-show/

All positions except for Regional Biz Dev Leads are based out of our Oakland, CA mushroom farm
For More Info and to Send Resumes + Cover letters: JointheTeam@BacktotheRoots.com

DRIVER
40 hours / week (Mon-Saturday); Pay: id=”mce_marker”4/hr

Description: Drive to all of our partner cafes each morning, collect their coffee grounds, and bring them back to our urban mushroom farm

Qualification: Valid driver license, bilingual, clean driving record

MARKETING & PR ASSOCIATE
Full time; Pay: $40,000 + annual bonus

Description: Take charge of BTTR’s PR outreach and work alongside company founders to develop and execute marketing strategy

Qualifications: Great communication, proficient at Photoshop and other design tools, strong work ethic, creative thinker

SENIOR FINANCIAL ANALYST
Part time (growth to full-time position available); Pay: $40,000 annualized

Description: Manage AR, AP, and reconciliation of expenses for the company

Qualification: Past experience in accounting, proficient on Quickbooks

SHIPPING & LOGISTICS ASSOCIATE
Part time (growth to full-time position available); Pay: $40,000 annualized

Description: Manage all shipping for the company, including online orders and freight logistics. Print out labels, confirm accuracy, and coordinate with the manufacturing team to make sure product gets out.

Qualification: Attention to detail, hard worker, proficient working with internet / fast-learner of different online systems

EXECUTIVE COORDINATOR
Full time; Pay: $40,000 + annual bonus

Description: Be the office ninja and work alongside company founders on various special projects. All-around all-star who can adapt and excel in a myriad of tasks and situations.

Qualification: College Degree, Min: 3.5 GPA, well spoken, articulate, flexible, efficient, uber-well organized, analytical thinker, leadership experience

REGIONAL BIZ DEV LEAD (NY, BOSTON, DC)
Full time; 25% commission within all sales from the region

Description: Take lead over growing the BTTR movement in your region – drive sales, build the buzz, and be the face of the company in your region. Primary focus: increase sales of Mushroom Gardens in the region

Qualification: College degree, entrepreneurial, great people-person, well organized, passion for the role, & self-starter. Past sales-experience a plus.

As Marketing & Communications Manager, Chris is trusted with ensuring that key stakeholders know about, care about and act upon the ICA mission. To achieve these goals, Chris leads the development, implementation and measurement of ICA’s marketing and communications strategies and tactics, creating and spreading stories so that target audiences believe ICA is the partner that inner city business leaders trust most to help them grow their companies and create quality jobs.

Under his leadership, ICA published its best impact report to date. Chris created and edited the content for the 2010 Impact Report, highlighting his ability to tell compelling, purposeful stories, and reliably execute strategy. His proficient command of language, combined with his entrepreneurial tenacity, is accelerating the quality of ICA communications and creating a new standard within the organization.

Prior to accepting the Marketing & Communications Manager position, Chris honed his skills at Fenton Communications, the nation’s best public interest communications agency that has contributed to some of the defining change movements of the past quarter century. There, Chris contributed to a variety of campaigns, including First 5 LA’s initiative to improve the lives of children in Los Angeles County and The California Endowment’s Building Healthy Communities initiative to create places where children are healthy, safe and ready to learn. With extensive experience in place-based public interest communications, Chris has developed strategic plans and placed stories in the nation’s leading news publications, in service to building thriving communities.

A firm believer in the value of listening, the power of language and the necessity of clear strategy, Chris’ core competency lies in his ability to create, deliver and measure stories that accelerate the progress of an organization’s mission.

Chris is a Bay Area native, born in Oakland, CA, raised in El Cerrito, CA and graduated from UC Berkeley. His current position represents a defining moment in his vocation to create economic inclusion and build healthy communities for inner city residents.

In addition to his love of language, Chris manages a small enterprise called ©+, designing and producing men’s and women’s fashion accessories inspired by LEGO bricks. When he’s not playing with children’s toys, you can find him playing pickup futbol, cheering on FC Barcelona and snacking on anything his hands can reach.

“The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you can alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.”—James Baldwin

The founding story of Back to the Roots Co-Founders Nikhil Arora and Alex Velez continues to spread as their success increases. The BTTR team hit its goal of diverting a million pounds of spent coffee grounds away from landfills and into its blooming gourmet mushroom-growing business. Co-founder Nikhil Arora, of ‘Back to the Roots’ talks with Anne Makovec of CBS News. Watch the video below.

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/video?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=6617150