Costa Coffee is a British multinational coffeehouse company headquartered in Dunstable, United Kingdom and a wholly owned subsidiary of Whitbread PLC. It is the second-largest coffeehouse chain in the world (behind Starbucks) and the largest in the United Kingdom.
Costa Coffee was founded in London in 1971 by the Italian brothers Sergio and Bruno Costa, as a wholesale operation supplying roasted coffee to caterers and specialist Italian coffee shops. It was acquired by Whitbread in 1995, since when it has grown to over 1,700 stores across 28 countries. The business has 1,375 UK shops, 920 Costa Express vending machines and a further 800 shops overseas.
Read more about Costa Coffee: History, Costa Book Awards, Controversies
Famous quotes containing the word coffee:
“you who put gum in my coffee cup
and worms in my Jell-O, you who let me pretend
you were daddy of the poets, witchman, you stand
for all, for all the bad dead, a Salvation Army Band
who plays for no one. I am cement. The bird in me is blind
as I knife out your name and all your dead kind.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)