What’s behind the rapid growth of Gen Z’s favorite Intagrammable coffee chain? As part of our Build a Brand series , we break down the key ingredients. Blank Street Coffee storefront on the Kings Road, London / Blank Street Coffee If you work in New York or London, you might have noticed green-fronted coffee shops filled with Gen Zers drinking matcha lattes in just about every neighborhood. Blank Street Coffee has been aggressively expanding its footprint as it hopes to become the Starbucks of a new generation of coffee drinkers.
Launched in 2020 originally as a coffee stand in Brooklyn, Blank Street added more New York locations before winning a hefty round of venture capital funding helping it transform into a coffee chain. It opened its first UK store in June 2022 and within six months opened a further 13. As of May 2024, Blank Street Coffee has 30 UK locations mainly in central London with a few in Manchester.
When speaking to its UK marketing director, Claudia Winter, it’s clear that Blank Street has ambitions to be a chain coffee shop to rival Starbucks, Dunkin, or Café Nero. Although anecdotally people say Blank Street Coffee feels like a local independent coffee shop it doesn’t want to be seen as one. “We believe that it’s the small things in life that build great foundations for your day, and that’s what we feel is missing from a lot of the other larger chains on the high street, and so the gap that we are filling,” Winter tells The Drum.
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