How He Grew His Espresso Store to $45 Million in Income

Twenty years in the past, Gregory Zamfotis was at a crossroads. He was a second-year legislation scholar at Brooklyn Regulation College and had simply been provided a full-time place at an actual property legislation agency. The one drawback was that Zamfotis needed to open his personal enterprise. 

“I grew up within the meals enterprise,” he explains in a brand new interview with Entrepreneur. “My father operated plenty of ideas in New York Metropolis, so I grew up working with him.”

Zamfotis labored at his father’s sandwich store throughout his time in legislation faculty. By the top of his training, he was successfully operating the place. He wound up “actually having fun with” the work and contemplating it as a possible profession. He knew he needed to begin a enterprise of his personal sooner or later, separate from his father’s endeavors. So after graduating from legislation faculty, he took his curiosity and fervour for espresso and his expertise working in meals service, and determined to open his personal espresso store. He was 24 years outdated. 

“In the event you had been within the Midtown Monetary District, the areas the place nearly all of New Yorkers are spending their time working, the one choices for espresso actually had been Starbucks or Dunkin,” Zamfotis says. “I assumed that was an enormous alternative as a result of I grew up working there. I needed to take what I had realized, apply it to the espresso business, and do it in part of town that was extraordinarily underserved on the time.”

Zamfotis began by opening one espresso bar on Park Avenue and determined it could merely be higher than something round it. The plan was to obsess over the drinks, the substances and the texture of the place till it earned a everlasting slot in New Yorkers’ day by day routines.

Day after day, cup after cup, that little store changed into a magnet for regulars who didn’t similar to the espresso; they had been loyal to the model. The id sharpened round daring, playful branding and a menu that refused to chop corners. 

“We needed to do a high quality specialty espresso operation in a quantity setting,” Zamfotis says, describing early days when he put in “70 to 80 hours every week” on the retailer to verify it ran precisely as he envisioned.

What stunned him

What Zamfotis didn’t absolutely perceive on the time was how arduous it could be to do espresso exceptionally effectively at scale. “I assume I used to be stunned at simply how complicated doing espresso rather well was,” he says. “The one means we had been gonna win is that if we might differentiate ourselves from the nationwide gamers or the opposite individuals doing espresso across the block.”

That realization pushed him right into a form of self-imposed espresso bootcamp. He visited outlets, attended conferences and immersed himself within the craft. “I had to spend so much of time and power not solely visiting different espresso outlets, touring, going to conferences, listening to audio system, and simply pouring myself actually into all issues espresso, to make myself an knowledgeable,” he says.

That work modified the tradition and the product. “There’s a distinction between doing issues effectively and doing issues nice,” he explains. As he elevated the espresso program and coaching requirements, clients started noticing the distinction — and saved their day by day behavior. “Prospects, perhaps to start with, had been coming due to all the opposite issues…nice service, quick, handsome retailer…then as soon as I began to raise the espresso program larger and better, whereas additionally retaining all these different parts so sturdy, that’s after we actually began to make issues higher,” he says. 

Immediately, Gregorys roasts its personal beans in Lengthy Island Metropolis, bakes contemporary pastries and emphasizes personalization — from milk selections to syrup ranges — whereas nonetheless shifting quick. The objective, Zamfotis says, is that clients ought to really feel like they’re sacrificing nothing: not time, not high quality, not choices.

Scaling from one retailer to 53 — and to $45 million

Zamfotis estimates the primary store took 12 to 18 months to search out consistency; the corporate hit the $1 million annual gross sales mark round yr two or three. That traction gave him the arrogance to open a second location roughly two and a half years after the primary — and it was an immediate hit. 

“When the primary location might have taken 12 to 18 months to stabilize, the second location was secure from the get-go…very busy from the day we opened,” he says.

From there, progress turned a operate of programs and folks. “I’ve at all times stated you may solely develop as quick because the individuals [you have] to assist execute,” Zamfotis says. For about 12 years, each single particular person ready of authority at Gregorys was promoted from inside, typically beginning as baristas.

That philosophy helped the corporate increase from two shops to 53 throughout New York, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., Florida, California, Arizona and Tennessee. The financials now mirror that footprint. “Final yr we did simply round $40 million,” Zamfotis says. “This yr, I imagine the projection is nearer to love $45 million.”

Exploring franchising

Sooner or later, Gregorys hit a crossroads: preserve grinding out company shops one after the other, or admit that the “unbelievable field” they’d constructed was sturdy sufficient to share with different operators and scale sooner than a single group ever might. That’s when Craveworthy Manufacturers and its CEO Gregg Majewski stepped in as managing companion and company operator in August 2025, bringing a platform constructed for franchising, from coaching to shared providers that would assist a nationwide push.

“We knew that if we needed to proceed to develop the model on the pace that was mandatory, the one means was to connect to franchising,” Majewski tells Entrepreneur in a brand new interview. 

Now, with a 20-year observe report and a typical retailer pulling in roughly $1 million in annual income (with excessive performers round $1.6 million and drive-thru fashions at about $1.4 million), Gregorys is now not simply the underdog Park Avenue café. It’s a New York–cast espresso model moving into the franchise highlight, aiming to promote 50 to 75 places in its first yr of franchising this yr and welcoming operators to go toe-to-toe with the most important espresso gamers in America.

“Any model that’s been across the business so long as that and has been profitable in as many markets because it has over the 20-year timeframe is ideal for franchising — particularly if you constructed your fame in one of many hardest cities on the planet to function in, New York,” Majewski says. Gregorys has “a bunch of regulars that completely stay and die [for] this model,” Majewski explains. 

Craveworthy Manufacturers brings scale muscle to franchising ambition. The agency has 21 manufacturers in its portfolio, eight of that are already franchising, and it offers the infrastructure that early franchisees typically lack: coaching, shared providers, development assist and operational programs constructed to duplicate efficiency throughout shops. Craveworthy’s portfolio consists of manufacturers like Huge Rooster, Taffer’s Tavern and Genghis Grill. 

For would-be franchisees, Gregorys is now pitching itself as a means right into a coveted phase that may in any other case be arduous to entry. Majewski notes that “among the larger gamers are offered out or aren’t accepting.” Gregorys provides a build-out value “wherever from $200,000 to $700,000,” he says.  

Why franchising works

Majewski is obvious about why he believes franchising works, not only for Gregorys however throughout Craveworthy’s portfolio. On the franchisor facet, the hurdle is guaranteeing programs and procedures are in place so the corporate can prepare successfully and execute the product persistently. 

On the franchisee facet, the problem is extra psychological: “following the programs and procedures and reminding your self that you simply purchased right into a system,” he says. The promise is that if the system is effectively designed and correctly adopted, it exists “for a purpose so that you will be profitable.”

Majewski insists that tradition is the differentiator in a profitable franchise. He says success comes from “establishing an unbelievable tradition within the system” and ensuring operations are easy sufficient to duplicate. “If any idea is ever too difficult, you may’t have the consistency,” he explains. 

The objective is that “if you stroll right into a retailer in Indiana or a retailer in California, you get the identical expertise,” he says. For Gregorys, meaning defending not solely the espresso high quality and menu but in addition the texture of a model born on Park Avenue and refined in New York Metropolis’s day by day grind.

Twenty years in the past, Gregory Zamfotis was at a crossroads. He was a second-year legislation scholar at Brooklyn Regulation College and had simply been provided a full-time place at an actual property legislation agency. The one drawback was that Zamfotis needed to open his personal enterprise. 

“I grew up within the meals enterprise,” he explains in a brand new interview with Entrepreneur. “My father operated plenty of ideas in New York Metropolis, so I grew up working with him.”

Zamfotis labored at his father’s sandwich store throughout his time in legislation faculty. By the top of his training, he was successfully operating the place. He wound up “actually having fun with” the work and contemplating it as a possible profession. He knew he needed to begin a enterprise of his personal sooner or later, separate from his father’s endeavors. So after graduating from legislation faculty, he took his curiosity and fervour for espresso and his expertise working in meals service, and determined to open his personal espresso store. He was 24 years outdated.