Scooter's Entering Busy ATL Coffee Market

A new coffeehouse chain is looking to scoot into Atlanta. With no indoor seating.

Omaha-based Scooter's Coffee is eyeing an Atlanta entry with an initial handful of units. And while Atlanta is full of both boutique coffee purveyors and chains like Starbucks, Scooter's is adding something unique to the caffeine-starved public mix: Its stores will be drive-thru only, says Colliers International's Mike Neal who (along with Payton Herschberger) has been tapped to search for Atlanta sites. “It's very high-end coffee,” Mike says. 

Initially, the coffee purveyor is seeking a handful of 900k SF sites in Atlanta in heavy traffic corridors. But, in a company package on its Atlanta entry, Scooter's execs write, “What is one thing Atlanta is known for? Traffic, people in Atlanta spend a lot of time in their cars. Sounds like a perfect combination to us.” To that end, Scooter's has recently added to its executive roster for corporate growth, naming Clay Cox as president earlier this year. He's been rejiggering the eatery's distribution network to manage a national rollout. Beyond Atlanta, the company is entering Phoenix, San Antonio and Minneapolis.

But to say Scooter's is growing in a crowded field would be an understatement—even in Atlanta. The king of all coffee purveyors remains Starbucks, which controls nearly 35% of the coffee retail business in the world, with more than $14B in revenues alone last year, according to Statista. But other chains are growing as well, especially Dunkin' Donuts, which has been increasing its Atlanta presence and putting an emphasis on coffee drinks. Consumers' thirst for caffeinated beverages seem to have lost little steam. According to Statista, the average American spends more than $21/week on coffee beverages.