Kahwa opens new location, expands franchising

Kahwa Coffee, a popular local coffee shop chain, has opened a new drive-thru location with a unique design.

The new location at 6601 4th Street N. in St. Petersburg is made from two shipping containers. Although this is not Kahwa’s first drive-thru, it is the company’s first store made of shipping containers.

“We thought it was something different, a way to reuse shipping containers,” said Raphael Perrier, who owns Kahwa with his wife Sarah. “The containers actually went over the Atlantic several times, but at some point, you can’t use them anymore. So we thought it was cool, for the look but also the idea of recycling them and doing something with them.”

The new St. Pete location offers both drive-thru and walk-up service, along with Kahwa’s full menu of pastries and sandwiches. Perrier said the location took longer than expected to build; the process began in 2020, when the City was short staffed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Other roadblocks like hurricanes and a change in flood zoning dragged the process out further. 

Kahwa is continuing to expand, with franchise locations in St. Petersburg, Orlando and Texas coming soon.

The new drive-thru cafe is open every day from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.

In addition to the new location, the home-grown company started franchising in September 2022. Perrier said the goal was to sell five franchises the first year – instead, they sold 20.

Perrier said the first local franchise will open in mid-May in the Gandy area, followed by franchises in Orlando and Texas, with more to follow as potential franchisees continue coming to Kahwa with interest in owning and operating their own location.

“I think we’ve done a good job on not just the coffee but the brand in general. We always say that it’s not all about coffee; it’s also about service, being friendly to everyone that walks in. I think that speaks volumes,” Perrier said. “The 150 employees we have are also a great team and a good asset to the company.”

The Perriers founded Kahwa in St. Petersburg, opening their first roasting facility in 2006 and their first coffee shop in 2008. The company has since grown to more than a dozen locations and hundreds of wholesale customers, making Kahwa the largest independent coffee roaster in Florida.

Perrier said when he and his wife started Kahwa, they didn’t stumble into success by accident; they always had big dreams of what Kahwa could become.

“Did we have vision? Yes. Did we know what we were doing? I think we had a good idea. Did we get lucky in the meantime? Yeah, I think luck is part of everything that you do in life, but I think the idea was always to try to do what we’re doing now,” Perrier said. “You have to believe; that’s the key to anything that you do in life.”