Dutch Bros Launches IPO After the Humble Beginnings

Dutch Bros Coffee announced an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, after beginning as a pushcart operation in an Oregon village and evolving into a firm with hundreds of drive-thru coffee shops. Investors reacted well to the sale, sending shares of the company up more than 50% in just a few hours. On Wednesday, Dutch Bros Coffee Executive Chairman Travis Boersma rang the ceremonial first trade bell on the NYSE floor.

The company’s first public offering price was $23 per share. The share price had risen to almost $37 at the end of the day’s trading. According to The Oregonian/OregonLive, the IPO was the largest in state history, making the coffee company the state’s fifth-most-valuable company, with a stock market valuation nearing that of Portland-based Columbia Sportswear. Coffee is a popular beverage in the Pacific Northwest. Starbucks was founded at Seattle’s famous Pike Place Market in 1971.

Unlike that franchise, which is now widely available throughout the United States and overseas, Dutch Bros is all drive-thru. Windmill-emblazoned stores have sprung up all throughout the West, reaching as far east as Texas and Oklahoma. Boersma exuberantly banged a gavel while presiding over the closing bell at the NYSE while flanked by officials and visitors of Dutch Bros Coffee, wearing a baseball cap turned backwards and a T-shirt proclaiming Rage Against the Machine, the name of a hard rock band.

Joth Ricci, the business’s president and CEO, told IPO Edge, a news outlet focused on new corporate share offerings, that the company’s decision to go public doesn’t mean it will grow too quickly. Boersma and his brother Dane began selling espresso-based beverages from a pushcart near the train lines in Grants Pass, Oregon, in 1992. Grants Pass today has a population of roughly 37,000 people.