Peet's Coffee & Tea - Company History

Company History

Alfred Peet grew up in the coffee business while living in the Netherlands as a child. Moving to San Francisco when he was 35, he began roasting coffee in the 1960s. Peet started Peet's Coffee & Tea as a single store in 1966 in Berkeley, California. Peet's original outlet is still located on the corner of Walnut and Vine (2124 Vine Street) in the Gourmet Ghetto of North Berkeley, close to the University of California. Throughout the later '60s, the '70s, and well into the '80s, standing in line at Peet's to buy weekly beans was a Bay Area ritual. That original location now contains a museum space which displays Peet's memorabilia and historical coffee equipment.

Peet's predates the more celebrated specialty company, Starbucks, and served as a model for that enterprise. The three founders of the Seattle-based chain all knew Peet personally; when they began their store in 1971, they bought their beans directly from Peet's, and continued to do so for the first year of business.

Peet sold his business in 1979 to Sal Bonavita, staying on as mentor and teacher until 1984. In 1984 Jerry Baldwin, one of the founders of Starbuck, and Peet's former partner, along with co-owner Jim Reynolds, the coffee roaster, and a group of investors, bought the four Bay Area Peet's locations from Bonavita. In 1987, Baldwin and Peet's owners sold the Starbucks chain to focus on Peet's, and Baldwin and Howard Schultz, Starbucks' new owner, entered into a non-compete agreement in the Bay Area.