Bridgehead Coffee

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bridgehead
Typecoffeehouse
Founded1981; 40 years ago (1981)
Headquarters130 Anderson Street
Ottawa, Ontario
K1R 6T7
Number of locations
20
Area served
Ottawa
Productscoffee, tea, juice, kombucha, bread
Websitewww.bridgehead.ca

Bridgehead is a fair trade coffeehouse chain based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. In addition to coffee and organic teas, it sells soups, salads, sandwiches and snacks made in its own kitchen.[1] In November 2006, Bridgehead was voted Ottawa's "Best Coffee/Tea House" by readers of lifestyle weekly Ottawa XPress.[2] Bridgehead also sells coffee by mail through its website.

History[]

Bridgehead was formed in Toronto, Ontario, originally as Bridgehead Trading, in 1981, by two United Church ministers and two social activists who were concerned with small-scale coffee farmers in Nicaragua.[3]

Bridgehead was the first company to offer Canadian consumers fairly traded coffee, as a group of volunteers sold coffee from the basements of churches in Toronto. The business grew rapidly and was soon acquired by Oxfam Canada in 1984.[3]

Under Oxfam Canada, Bridgehead became a formally incorporated, for-profit company. Oxfam Canada's aim was not to focus on the coffee that Bridgehead was funded and grew from, but to bring in a more diverse fair-trade product line. This eventually led to a decrease in profits and eventually a dip into losses.[3] A profile of Bridgehead's post-Oxfam management in the Ottawa Citizen claimed that Oxfam Canada's Bridgehead ultimately failed in the mid-1990s due in part to a "lack of sound business practices."[4]

In May 1998, Bridgehead was acquired by Shared Interest. This U.K. based lending society held the Bridgehead name in hopes of finding a buyer. Shared Interest only needed to hold the name for a year as in 1999; an offer arrived from Tracey Clark.[3]

Clark wanted to restore Bridgehead to its former status as a fair-trade coffee and tea company. In April 2000, Bridgehead Inc. was formed, and on June 17, 2000, the first Bridgehead Coffeehouse opened at 362 Richmond Road in Westboro, Ottawa, Ontario.[3] Clark originally relied on financing from family and friends, but by 2002, Bridgehead was owned by 30 investors.[5] Also in 2002, Clark opened a central kitchen to serve Bridgehead's line of food products. [6] Bridgehead expanded from one outlet in 2000[7] to nine by 2008,[8] and currently operates twenty outlets, requiring the company to provide calorie counts for all of its food products.[9][10]

June 2012 marked the opening of Bridgehead's own roastery, which is now where all of the coffee that is sold by the company is roasted.[3] A further development is the introduction of alcohol to Bridgeheads beverage lineup. In July 2015, According to the reports, Bridgehead Coffee opened a 1,850-square-foot location in a six-storey office at the corner of Pinecrest road and Iris Street.[11] As of September 2015, select Bridgehead locations began to offer beer from local breweries Beau's and Beyond the Pale, as well as wine and coffee-inspired cocktails.[12] In 2017, Bridgehead began working with Carleton University's Mass Spectrometry Centre to uncover answers about how coffee beans age on a cellular level.[13]

In December 2019, the company announced it was being sold to Aegis Brands, parent company of the Second Cup coffee chain.

Locations[]

Bridgehead Coffee has 20 locations in the Ottawa region.[9]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Coffee Houses Archived 2013-08-23 at the Wayback Machine Bridgehead website. Retrieved August 13, 2007.
  2. ^ "Ottawa Xpress, 23 November 2006 (The annual "Best of Ottawa" issue)". Archived from the original on 21 February 2007. Retrieved 26 November 2006.
  3. ^ a b c d e f "History". www.bridgehead.ca. Retrieved 2015-11-12.
  4. ^ Chianello, Joanne (2002) "Bridgehead bounces back: Sticking to your ethics can work as long as the business plan is based on more than good intentions" in Ottawa Citizen [1] Archived 2013-07-31 at the Wayback Machine (May 4, 2002), p.H1, H4.
  5. ^ Chianello, 2002:H4
  6. ^ "At 10,000 cups a day and counting, Bridgehead branches out". Ottawa Citizen. Retrieved January 11, 2019.
  7. ^ Cook, Gay (2000) "Bridgehead Offers Coffee with a Difference" in Ottawa Citizen (July 12, 2000)
  8. ^ Bridgehead.ca "Locations" at http://www.bridgehead.ca/en/AboutUs/locations.asp Archived 2007-06-08 at the Wayback Machine [2] Archived 2007-06-08 at the Wayback Machine
  9. ^ a b "After posting calorie counts, Bridgehead sees customers changing their orders". CBC News. Retrieved 2019-01-15.
  10. ^ Bridgehead [@Bridgehead] (4 August 2015). "Iris and Greenbank is now open! Come and visit our 16th store on its opening day. Hats off to Jen & everyone making this happen!!" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  11. ^ "Bridgehead to open shop near Ikea, adds licensed patio to the mix". Ottawa Citizen. 2015-07-27. Retrieved 2017-11-17.
  12. ^ "Bridgehead to start serving liquor in September". Ottawa Citizen. Retrieved 2015-11-12.
  13. ^ "Brewing Better Business: Carleton and Bridgehead Research a Coffee Conundrum". Carleton Stories. Retrieved 2017-02-08.

External links[]

Coordinates: 45°23′29″N 75°45′17″W / 45.39150°N 75.75465°W / 45.39150; -75.75465

Retrieved from ""