Caribou Coffee

History

John Puckett, a management consultant for Bain & Company, decided to become an entrepreneur after a trip to Denali National Park in Alaska. He and his wife, Kim, raised money to start a coffee company; she kept her job at General Motors while he moved to Minnesota to find the first site and arrange financing. The initial concept targeted downtown office workers on a five-day-a-week schedule, mirroring a Boston model. Puckett signed a lease for a location in the Pillsbury Center office building, but the landlord later refused to sign because another retail tenant held exclusive coffee-selling rights and threatened to sue.

Financing fell through, and Puckett sought a suburban site. The first Caribou Coffee shop opened in Edina, Minnesota, in December 1992. In 1994, Puckett recruited Kent Parker, his Dartmouth business school roommate, to help grow the company. Michael J. Coles became CEO in 2003.

On September 29, 2005, Caribou launched its IPO on NASDAQ under CBOU. Coles recalled that within two years of his tenure, the chain expanded to 337 stores in fourteen states and the District of Columbia, and went from negative sales growth to a public company. In 2006, Arcapita (formerly First Islamic Investment Bank) was the majority shareholder. In 2002, Yusuf al-Qaradawi's involvement with the bank led to a protest of Caribou Coffee; that year al-Qaradawi stepped down as chairman of the bank's Sharia Board.

As of 2009, Caribou employed over 6,000 people. In December 2012, German equity company JAB Holding Company took the company private in a $340 million deal. After the merger, Caribou Coffee continued as an independent company with its own brand, management team, and growth strategy, remaining based in Minneapolis.