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A luxury chain setting up shops across Manhattan is betting customers from Los Angeles to Chicago will be willing to pay US$32 for an eight-ounce cup of coffee.
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London-based WatchHouse, which expanded to a fourth location in Manhattan this week, plans to open a store next year in Los Angeles and is scouting for spots in cities including Austin, Chicago and Miami, according to a person familiar with the plans. A fifth Manhattan shop will debut in NoMad in September and another is under construction in the Brookfield Place complex in the Battery Park City neighbourhood.
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The Bambito Estate, at US$32, is the most expensive item on the menu at its newest location in midtown Manhattan.
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“It’s kinda insane, I know,” said barista Joseph Peachey, 27, as he prepared a Bambito Estate. It’s steeped from beans from a family farm in western Panama and served with a side of cold-brewed green tea that is to be sipped as a palate cleanser.
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WatchHouse got its start in 2014 when Roland Horne, the founder and chief executive, converted a 19th century building on Bermondsey Street in London into a cafe. It took its name from the structure, a watch house that once sheltered guards who looked after a nearby church.
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The company’s backers include HighPost Capital, an investment firm cofounded by Mark Bezos, the younger brother of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The chain so far has stores in London, New York, the United Arab Emirates and Bath, England.
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WatchHouse’s menu includes budget-friendly options, with a straight black coffee priced at US$4. As the company says on its website, the intention is to welcome “the connoisseur and the casually curious in equal measure.”
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But what about that US$32 cup? Coffee aficionados have historically demonstrated tolerance for elevated prices, said Emily Murawski, research and insights manager at Datassential, a market-research firm in Chicago. That’s especially true when there’s a big jump in quality, Murawski added.
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In other words, if people are happy with the coffee they make at home, they’ll have that. If they go out, they’ll pay up — but that coffee had better be really good.
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One reviewer, Duncan Cock Foster, 31, cofounder of shuttered NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway, said he ordered a US$22 Franceschi from the Rarities line at the store on Park Avenue South.
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The fancy presentation — the tray, palate cleanser, serving glass — fell flat because he found the end result underwhelming, he said. “It tasted exactly like the coffee that gets brewed in a Mr. Coffee.”
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But Cock Foster said other WatchHouse offerings are above average. And he’s not against paying over US$20 for a cup that amazes, he said. “If you really are getting an exceptional product, then I think it can be justified.”
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Data from Technomic, a food-service industry research and consulting firm, show that the occasional crazy splurge on a coffee isn’t that far-fetched for many. “While a US$30 coffee may be out of reach for most situations, special occasions know few bounds when it comes to price,” said Robert Byrne, the firm’s senior director of consumer research.
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