How He Grew His Coffee Shop to $45 Million in Revenue

Twenty years in the past, Gregory Zamfotis was at a crossroads. He was a second-year regulation scholar at Brooklyn Legislation College and had simply been supplied a full-time place at an actual property regulation agency. The one downside was that Zamfotis wished to open his personal enterprise. 

“I grew up within the meals enterprise,” he explains in a brand new interview with Entrepreneur. “My father operated plenty of ideas in New York Metropolis, so I grew up working with him.”

Zamfotis labored at his father’s sandwich store throughout his time in regulation college. By the tip of his schooling, he was successfully operating the place. He wound up “actually having fun with” the work and contemplating it as a possible profession. He knew he wished to start out a enterprise of his personal at some point, separate from his father’s endeavors. So after graduating from regulation college, he took his curiosity and fervour for espresso and his expertise working in meals service, and determined to open his personal espresso store. He was 24 years previous. 

“If you happen to had been within the Midtown Monetary District, the areas the place the vast majority of New Yorkers are spending their time working, the one choices for espresso actually had been Starbucks or Dunkin,” Zamfotis says. “I believed that was an enormous alternative as a result of I grew up working there. I wished to take what I had discovered, apply it to the espresso trade, and do it in part of town that was extraordinarily underserved on the time.”

Zamfotis began by opening one espresso bar on Park Avenue and determined it will merely be higher than something round it. The plan was to obsess over the drinks, the components and the texture of the place till it earned a everlasting slot in New Yorkers’ day by day routines.

Day after day, cup after cup, that little store became a magnet for regulars who didn’t similar to the espresso; they had been loyal to the model. The id sharpened round daring, playful branding and a menu that refused to chop corners. 

“We wished to do a high quality specialty espresso operation in a quantity setting,” Zamfotis says, describing early days when he put in “70 to 80 hours per week” on the retailer to ensure it ran precisely as he envisioned.

What stunned him

What Zamfotis didn’t totally perceive on the time was how exhausting it will be to do espresso exceptionally nicely at scale. “I suppose I used to be stunned at simply how complicated doing espresso very well was,” he says. “The one means we had been gonna win is that if we might differentiate ourselves from the nationwide gamers or the opposite individuals doing espresso across the block.”

That realization pushed him right into a type of self-imposed espresso bootcamp. He visited retailers, attended conferences and immersed himself within the craft. “I had to spend so much of time and power not solely visiting different espresso retailers, touring, going to conferences, listening to audio system, and simply pouring myself actually into all issues espresso, to make myself an knowledgeable,” he says.

That work modified the tradition and the product. “There’s a distinction between doing issues nicely and doing issues nice,” he explains. As he elevated the espresso program and coaching requirements, prospects started noticing the distinction — and stored their day by day behavior. “Prospects, perhaps at first, had been coming due to all the opposite issues…nice service, quick, handsome retailer…then as soon as I began to raise the espresso program greater and better, whereas additionally protecting all these different components so sturdy, that’s once we actually began to make issues higher,” he says. 

At the moment, Gregorys roasts its personal beans in Lengthy Island Metropolis, bakes contemporary pastries and emphasizes personalization — from milk selections to syrup ranges — whereas nonetheless shifting quick. The objective, Zamfotis says, is that prospects ought to really feel like they’re sacrificing nothing: not time, not high quality, not choices.

Scaling from one retailer to 53 — and to $45 million

Zamfotis estimates the primary store took 12 to 18 months to search out consistency; the corporate hit the $1 million annual gross sales mark round 12 months two or three. That traction gave him the arrogance to open a second location roughly two and a half years after the primary — and it was an on the spot hit. 

“When the primary location could have taken 12 to 18 months to stabilize, the second location was secure from the get-go…very busy from the day we opened,” he says.

From there, development grew to become a perform of techniques and other people. “I’ve at all times stated you possibly can solely develop as quick because the individuals [you have] to assist execute,” Zamfotis says. For about 12 years, each single individual ready of authority at Gregorys was promoted from inside, usually beginning as baristas.

That philosophy helped the corporate develop from two shops to 53 throughout New York, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., Florida, California, Arizona and Tennessee. The financials now mirror that footprint. “Final 12 months we did simply round $40 million,” Zamfotis says. “This 12 months, I imagine the projection is nearer to love $45 million.”

Exploring franchising

In some unspecified time in the future, Gregorys hit a crossroads: maintain grinding out company shops one after the other, or admit that the “unbelievable field” they’d constructed was sturdy sufficient to share with different operators and scale sooner than a single workforce ever might. That’s when Craveworthy Manufacturers and its CEO Gregg Majewski stepped in as managing accomplice and company operator in August 2025, bringing a platform constructed for franchising, from coaching to shared companies that would help a nationwide push.

“We knew that if we wished to proceed to develop the model on the pace that was essential, the one means was to connect to franchising,” Majewski tells Entrepreneur in a brand new interview. 

Now, with a 20-year monitor file and a typical retailer pulling in roughly $1 million in annual income (with excessive performers round $1.6 million and drive-thru fashions at about $1.4 million), Gregorys is not simply the underdog Park Avenue café. It’s a New York–cast espresso model entering into the franchise highlight, aiming to promote 50 to 75 areas in its first 12 months of franchising this 12 months and welcoming operators to go toe-to-toe with the most important espresso gamers in America.

“Any model that’s been across the trade so long as that and has been profitable in as many markets because it has over the 20-year timeframe is ideal for franchising — particularly if you constructed your repute in one of many hardest cities on the planet to function in, New York,” Majewski says. Gregorys has “a gaggle of regulars that completely stay and die [for] this model,” Majewski explains. 

Craveworthy Manufacturers brings scale muscle to franchising ambition. The agency has 21 manufacturers in its portfolio, eight of that are already franchising, and it supplies the infrastructure that early franchisees usually lack: coaching, shared companies, building help and operational techniques constructed to duplicate efficiency throughout shops. Craveworthy’s portfolio consists of manufacturers like Large Hen, Taffer’s Tavern and Genghis Grill. 

For would-be franchisees, Gregorys is now pitching itself as a means right into a coveted phase that may in any other case be exhausting to entry. Majewski notes that “a few of the greater gamers are bought out or aren’t accepting.” Gregorys presents a build-out price “anyplace from $200,000 to $700,000,” he says.  

Why franchising works

Majewski is evident about why he believes franchising works, not only for Gregorys however throughout Craveworthy’s portfolio. On the franchisor aspect, the hurdle is guaranteeing techniques and procedures are in place so the corporate can prepare successfully and execute the product constantly. 

On the franchisee aspect, the problem is extra psychological: “following the techniques and procedures and reminding your self that you just purchased right into a system,” he says. The promise is that if the system is nicely designed and correctly adopted, it exists “for a cause so that you may be profitable.”

Majewski insists that tradition is the differentiator in a profitable franchise. He says success comes from “establishing an unbelievable tradition within the system” and ensuring operations are easy sufficient to duplicate. “If any idea is ever too difficult, you possibly can’t have the consistency,” he explains. 

The objective is that “if you stroll right into a retailer in Indiana or a retailer in California, you get the identical expertise,” he says. For Gregorys, which means defending not solely the espresso high quality and menu but additionally the texture of a model born on Park Avenue and refined in New York Metropolis’s day by day grind.

Twenty years in the past, Gregory Zamfotis was at a crossroads. He was a second-year regulation scholar at Brooklyn Legislation College and had simply been supplied a full-time place at an actual property regulation agency. The one downside was that Zamfotis wished to open his personal enterprise. 

“I grew up within the meals enterprise,” he explains in a brand new interview with Entrepreneur. “My father operated plenty of ideas in New York Metropolis, so I grew up working with him.”

Zamfotis labored at his father’s sandwich store throughout his time in regulation college. By the tip of his schooling, he was successfully operating the place. He wound up “actually having fun with” the work and contemplating it as a possible profession. He knew he wished to start out a enterprise of his personal at some point, separate from his father’s endeavors. So after graduating from regulation college, he took his curiosity and fervour for espresso and his expertise working in meals service, and determined to open his personal espresso store. He was 24 years previous.