Coffee shops don’t focus on what they can truly provide to a community

Many coffee shops, especially larger chains, only see their business as a one-dimensional retail space. They fail to recognize the opportunity to provide more than just food and drinks to their customers. Coffee shops around the world have the potential to build community, inspire creativity, and boost the value of their neighborhood. Chains, however, focus on building spaces that are uniform and sterile, without taking into account the environment and values around them. 

Creating community, creativity, and innovation

La Borra Cafe is an international coffee retailer that offers a fresh take on the outdated chain model. We create spaces intentionally designed to reflect not only the neighborhood around us, but also the interests and intellect of our consumers. The coffee, snacks, art, books, and decor found within our spaces are unique to each location, but all have the same driving force behind them. You can catch up with a friend on a comfortable or meet in a private meeting room to create that amazing project that's been on your mind. When people enter our cafes, they aren’t just getting coffee—they're getting community. 

The La Borra Cafe team is committed to transforming gray days into happy moments, through social responsibility programs to help communities in need.

As part of our community programs, we offer free courses to teach people how to help others.

Offering neighborhoods a unique approach to coffee and community

The inspiration for our name and brand comes from La Borra de Café, a novel by Mario Benedetti. In addition to comfort, customers can find a diversity of stimuli represented in art that will leave them inspired. Every La Borra Cafe is different, as each one is designed with a "soul" to match the town in which it is located. All locations have community-focused aspects, such as book-sharing and public events, and all shops are situated on street corners to maximize light and space.

Our coffee beans are roasted in-house and are sourced directly from farmers in Mexico. Plus, our milk frothing, cold brews, and flavor profiles offer a fresh, sweet, and delicious alternative to conventional American coffee. 

One of the fastest-growing café chains in western Mexico

La Borra del Café first opened its doors in Mexico 9 years ago. Since then, we've expanded to 70+ locations in Mexico and 5 in the U.S. We were nominated for Best Franchisee of the World 2019, and were named by The Economist as "one of the fastest-growing cafes in western Mexico." In 2016, we received the Adolf Horn Award for Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

 

Now with the support and the coaching of Select USA, we are ready to bring the inspiration of Mexico all over California.

Praised for our genuine Mexican coffee, excellent service, and invigorating space

La Borra Cafe has grown a name for itself over the last year. Despite the complications of COVID-19, our newly opened U.S. locations have managed not only to survive but also thrive. Our Chicago locations have both been praised for our delicious, authentic Mexican coffee, our excellent service, and our fresh and lovely ambiance. 

Response to COVID-19

Our customers and our team are our priority. As we navigated this global health crisis, we increased the sanitizing protocols in all spaces at our locations, following the recommendations of the WHO (World Health Organization) since the beginning of the pandemic.

We teamed up with delivery platforms to sustain all jobs. We didn't let go of any of our team members during the pandemic.

We created a special platform to pre-buy points online with special benefits, so people can exchange them for their favorite products in the future. We also launched a pop-up online store with special products and coffee kits.

While other international brands closed locations, we opened new branches, which speaks to the strong foundation of our business model, operational expertise, and the immense inspiration behind our brand.

Selling coffee, goods and snacks inspired by Mexican cuisine and local interests

All of our stores serve a variety of drinks, snacks, fresh baked goods and meals inspired by Mexican cuisine. In addition to our range of frappés, cold-brews, lattes, and other espresso drinks, we also offer traditional cafe snacks and desserts. Our stand-out items include our orejitas, conchas, garibaldis and pies. 

Tapping into a $47.5B+ market

La Borra Cafe has a massive market advantage – due to our international product, we're able to target both the Latino and US coffee shop market. This global market is projected to grow to $237B+ by 2025, despite challenges presented by COVID-19. As of 2021, La Borra Cafe has a TAM of $47.5B+. 

We face tough competition, but we have several key advantages

La Borra Cafe is entering into a difficult market. Our main competitor is Starbucks, which owns 50%+ of the market in Mexico and 40%+ of the US market. However, we aren’t planning to be another Starbucks, and that’s what affords us the opportunity to carve out a niche for ourselves. In La Borra Cafe, customers can exchange books, watch movies, conduct meetings and work in communal spaces, and pet-friendly areas, we love to have a community and inspire others to create beauty and extraordinary things.

We are different from our competitors because we focus on creating spaces of comfort, quality, and inspiration combined with an awesome product. 

Each branch of La Borra Café is unique and has disruptive elements (a red door, a swing, colored birds flying throughout the cafeteria), which generate curiosity in our visitors and serve as a inspiration to create their own stories while staying true to the essence of the brand.

Planning to open 201 locations in California

With the support of investors and customers, La Borra Cafe will introduce 201 new locations in the 5 years. We plan to expand both in the at-home market and internationally, targeting San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles, and other cities that are friendly to culture-driven, community-oriented coffee shops. 

Raising funds to open 201+ locations in the next 5 years

La Borra Cafe is currently entering into a new round of funding to support our tremendous growth and scaling projects. We previously crowd-funded in Mexico with Play Business, where we received MX$14M+ from 955 investors. Both rounds of funding will go towards working capital, consolidation and management of packaging lines, and the management of international openings. With your investment, we will be on track to open 201 new locations over the next 5 years. 

Leon Reffreger Alonso, CEO of La Borra del Café 

La Borra Cafe started as a thesis for Leon and ended up as an international coffee shop business. Although the road was not always easy, Leon and his team have now grown the company to 70 locations in Mexico, 5 in the U.S., and 2 in Spain. 

While all other coffee chains were closing, Leon and the team saw an opportunity to continue growing despite the global pandemic. 

The team is made up of experienced individuals who have built top-tier brands in the coffee and food industry.