NYC Multiroaster Drink Delivery Startup Goffee Raises $1M

The Goffee reusable vessels. All images courtesy of Goffee.

In business, time is money. For the past year, a New York City start-up called Goffee has been trying to save offices and their workers both.

The company, which launched in September of last year, has so far delivered more than 80,000 freshly brewed cups directly to office workers. With office membership packages starting at $799 per month, the Goffee system allows employees to create and edit their own profiles and daily coffee drink orders, choosing from more than two dozen coffee roasting brands, then Goffee delivers the drinks at an agreed-upon time each day.

Drinks come in a sturdy, reusable ceramic mugs with aluminum lining and wooden bases. These are then collected, cleaned and reused by Goffee, whose founder Vincent Meyer recently told Daily Coffee News that they may also switch to bamboo-based cups or a recycled plastic in the future.

“We haven’t broken one cup so far — knock on wood,” Meyer told DCN. “We have over 2500 cups in rotation right now.”

The company currently cranks out more than 1,000 drinks each business day from a commissary kitchen and coffee bar in Hell’s Kitchen for non-motor-vehicle delivery around Midtown. There the Goffee team is using a combination of modified La Marzocco, Casadio and Rancilio espresso machinery, and Mazzer and Mahlkönig grinders.

“We removed the access to the steam wand to maximize the pressure and heat going through the heads instead,” said Meyer, who also modified the grinder hoppers to connect several separate beans together at a single chute. “Sadly the market doesn’t have a grinder with five hoppers or an espresso machine with 10 heads.”

The coffees in those hoppers come from more than 30 different roasters and brands — a selection that continues to grow, according to Meyer. Starbucks and Peet’s are listed alongside a majority of smaller and more quality-oriented companies such as Ritual Coffee, Cuvée Coffee, Cafe Grumpy, Think Coffee and more. Drinks are made assembly-line style by a team of five full-timers and 15 part-timers between the hours of 7:30 and 11 a.m. under the supervision of head barista Reuben Villagomez, who is also founder and CEO of his own roasting company, Zero Carbon Coffee.

“We have one master barista with over 12 years of experience [who] has been training each of our members,” Meyer said of Villagomez. “Our production process is very different than a cafe, where one barista is making a drink from start to finish. Our team breaks out the process in steps and focus on one step at a time.”

Those drinks are also delivered one step at a time — on foot, in backpacks. The concept seems to be resonating with grassroots investors. Just this week, Goffee announced it has raised $1.07 million — the maximum amount allowable by law for regulation crowdfunding — by way of crowd equity campaign platform StartEngine.

With those funds, Goffee’s plans include opening two additional brew kitchens in — one in Union Square, and the other in Midtown East — with plans to eventually expand delivery throughout all of Manhattan south of 59th Street.

Said Meyer, “We are working hard every day to conquer Manhattan one cup at a time.”

Meyer said Goffee is also likely to spread to other cities soon, starting with San Francisco, possibly followed by Seattle, Los Angeles and San Diego.

The company also hopes to eventually expand delivery throughout all of Manhattan south of 59th Street before the end of next year, growing Goffee from its current roughly 1,000 daily deliveries up to 4,000 by the end of the first quarter of 2020.

Said Meyer, “We are working hard every day to conquer Manhattan one cup at a time.”