EMERGING BRANDS
THIS U.K.-BASED COFFEE BRAND HOPES TO FIND A NICHE IN AMERICA’S OVERCAFFEINATED BEVERAGE LANDSCAPE
Black Sheep Coffee is growing in Texas and Florida with bolder beans, upgraded matcha and a hand-held Norwegian waffle.
W hen international foodser- vice chains come to the U.S. for the first time, they typi - cally make their debut first in New York City (or Los Angeles). But Black Sheep Coffee, a drive-thru and coffee shop brand born in the United King- dom, decided to do things differently. Black Sheep opened first in the Dallas area in 2024 with the goal of seeding the Sun Belt, where the population is growing, said co-founder Gabriel Shohet, who recently moved to the U.S. The coffee chain now has four units in Texas, with two more scheduled to open by the end of 2025. Another location has also opened in Miami, where Black Sheep has es- tablished a U.S. headquarters. The brand is planning franchise growth across the country. Shohet said the Texas and Florida territories are sold, and now the chain is seeing interest from franchisees in Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Ar- izona. Developed about 12 years ago in Lon- don, Black Sheep has been on a growth tear in the U.K. and now is entering the Middle East. The chain has 125 units across the U.K., about 45 of which are company-owned, with
another five franchised units coming to Gulf Cooperation Council nations around the Per- sian Gulf. Shohet, who is originally from Switzer- land, co-founded the coffee concept with Eirik Holth roughly 12 years ago. The two friends had quit their “boring office jobs” on the same day (Holth was in infrastructure and Shohet was in tech) and moved to Lon- don with the idea of starting a coffee shop. “We had no idea what we were doing,” said Shohet. “We thought, it can’t be that hard to start a coffee shop. “We were very naive,” he added. With only about $20,000 (or probably the equivalent in British pounds) in savings, they couldn’t afford a lease. So they set up a trestle table on a street corner and spent two years shilling coffees until they had earned enough to open a brick-and-mortar. Now, of course, Shohet is very aware of the “sweat and tears” it takes to build a brand. “It’s a very, very iterative process of try- ing new things and scrapping old ideas, and implementing new ones,” he said. “But it’s also been a really fun journey.” Black Sheep’s primary point of differen- tiation is the type of coffee used. Most cof-
LISA JENNINGS
LISA.JENNINGS@INFORMA.COM
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RESTAURANT BUSINESS JANUARY 2026
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