![]() Heine Brothers' location in Louisville's Crescent Hill neighborhood | |
Industry | Coffee shop |
---|---|
Founded | 1994 |
Headquarters | Louisville, Kentucky |
Products | Coffee, tea |
Website | heinebroscoffee |
Heine Brothers' is a coffee roaster and coffee shop chain founded in 1994 by Gary Heine and Mike Mays in Louisville, Kentucky. [1] [2] Mays is President of the company. [3] [4]
The company has 200-300 employees. [5]
The first Heine Brothers' shop was opened in the Highlands neighborhood in Louisville in 1994. [6]
The company became "100% Fair-Trade & Organic" in 2002. [7]
In 2011, co-founder Mays bought out Heine's interests in the company and merged it with Vint, a local coffee shop chain. [8] Today, the company operates 16 Heine Brothers' coffee shops within Kentucky and Southern Indiana. [9] [10] [11]
In 1999, Heine Brothers' became a founding member of Cooperative Coffees, Inc., [12] [13] an importer of fairly traded and organically grown green coffee operating in the United States and Canada. [7]
In early 2015, in a partnership with Forecastle Foundation and Whole Foods Market, Heine Brothers' created "Kentucky Dream", a fair trade coffee blend benefiting conservation efforts. [14]
In November 2016, the company relocated its roasting facilities and headquarters to Louisville's Portland neighborhood. [15] [16]
In August 2017, Heine Brothers' partnered with WDRB, a local, Fox-affiliated television station, to distribute eclipse glasses for the solar eclipse of August 21, 2017. Funds raised from the promotion, totaling $50,702, were donated to the Louisville Science Center. [17] [18]
In 2021, the company expanded with one more shop in Valley Station. [19]
On May 10, 2022, several Heine Brothers workers announced their intention to form a union. [20] On March 17, 2023, the workers' union ratified their first collective bargaining agreement with the company. [21]
Currently, the company's coffee offerings are grown and exported by farmer-owned cooperatives in Central America (Dominican Republic, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua), South America (Colombia, Peru, Bolivia), Africa (Ethiopia), Indonesia (Sumatra, East Timor).