Tully's Coffee is a specialty coffee retailer and wholesaler based in Seattle, Washington, United States. Its stores serve speciality coffees, espresso, baked goods, pastries, and coffee-related supplies. It also has overseas licensing agreements in Japan and South Korea where its brand name is used for Tully's coffee houses in those countries. Tully's currently has the highest sales of whole bean coffee in grocery and supermarket stores in the US.Tully's Coffee is well known for once following an expansion strategy of opening stores adjacent to the opposing coffee giant Starbucks, also based in Seattle. There's a running joke in Seattle that the easiest way to find a Tully's is to stand in front of a Starbucks and turn around. The busiest Tully's in the world is located inside the Boeing Everett factory,near where 747 aircraft are built. Tully's is now owned by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters.
History
Tully's opened its first store in Kent, Washington, in 1992. The founder of Tully's Coffee, Tom Tully O'Keefe, planned to rival the quickly expanding Starbucks coffee. Tully's quickly developed into a strong regional specialty-coffee retailer that was concentrated in Puget Sound, where coffee loyalty is so deep there is one coffee shop for every 4000 people. In 2006, Tully's made its first net profit. But more recently, the president and CEO has described Tully's focus as no longer on competing against the mega giant Starbucks, but on serving fine hand crafted coffee (and expanding into the Wholesale market).
It now operates nearly 100 stores in the Greater Puget Sound area of Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Idaho, Arizona, and licenses its brand for use in South Korea and Japan. It has also opened several stores in Stockholm. Tully's sold the most profitable unit of the company—its Japan partnership—for US$17.9 million in September, 2005.
