Black Rifle Coffee Company — a brand known as much for its military themed merchandise as for its coffee — has plans for store expansion in the San Antonio area and across the country. Its explosive growth in recent years has been driven by in part by its cultivation of a loyal consumer base of veterans and conservatives who identify with the company’s stated desire to serve “premium coffee to people who love America.”
It has also benefited from bullish investor money, as well as free publicity from the local and national controversies that its owners publicly wade into.
The company, whose headquarters are split between Utah and San Antonio, was founded by three veterans in 2014 as an online retailer. It then began to sell its signature coffee products — with names like AK-47 Espresso Roast and Thin Blue Line — through stores like Bass Pro Shops, Cabela’s and Walmart. Two stand-alone stores are now in San Antonio and in Boerne, with two more planned for the region by the end of 2023, when Black Rifle also plans to have opened 25 additional company-owned stores, with more franchise locations.
In 2015 the company’s annual revenue was $1 million. By 2019 it was $82 million. For 2022, the company estimates it will ultimately reach at least $320 million in revenue, Black Rifle co-CEO Tom Davin told investors on Thursday. The company posted a $45.1 million loss for the second quarter of 2022.
The growth trajectory has been rapid for a company whose first brick-and-mortar location opened in 2019, outside of San Antonio in Boerne. The opening was a city-sponsored celebration that closed down the downtown street to host food stands, military vehicles, inflatables and a live podcast recording from the owners of Black Rifle Coffee Company.
Few other coffee companies would make their podcast such a central part of their brand — let alone have a podcast at all — but Black Rifle is in part driven by its media production staying “top of mind” for consumers, as Davin said in a December call with investors. In recent episodes of the podcast, the Black Rifle founders have chatted about veteran stories, their support of the Second Amendment and the state of journalism.
“I’m a conservative guy. I’m a large Second Amendment guy. That’s going to bleed into my brand,” said co-founder Mat Best in an interview with the San Antonio Report. Best also is the company’s head of brand.
The podcast isn’t Black Rifle’s only media front. Their Instagram account has 1.8 million followers. Many posts are humorous, like a Mother’s Day post showing a woman gunning down zombies, or a high-production video of gun-toting men dressed as the Founding Fathers parachuting out of a plane to deliver coffee to weary snipers. But some are somber, like a tribute to military personnel who have died in action.
The company has also launched a military news site with on-the-ground reporting in Ukraine.
It’s also recently made attempts to expand its media brand, such as a bid to appeal more widely to Latinos by producing the music video of a Tejano rapper. The company also recently finished filming new installments of Recoil and Gymkhana, two pre-existing truck stunt series with massive followings on YouTube. “This content appeals to our core community, as well as a broader global audience, which will help continue to grow our brand recognition,” said founder Evan Hafer on a call with investors on Thursday.
Walking into the San Antonio store on Bitters Road, the fact that Black Rifle Coffee is a lifestyle brand as much as a coffee company is readily apparent. Half of the store space is taken up by brand logo merchandise, like T-shirts with an M-16 over the U.S. flag or a coffee mug that looks like a grenade. The tactical theme is carried into even small details in the store, where customers pick up their orders from a counter labeled the “drop zone.”
“I like the coffee, and I like supporting a veteran-owned business,” said customer Joe Martinez, a veteran himself who sat in the store working on his laptop recently. Other customers also cited its military theme.
A major driver of this success is the brand’s mission of helping veterans, founder and CEO Evan Hafer told investors in an earnings call in May. That mission “resonates with our customers, our retail partners, vendors and even our landlords,” Hafer said.
He said, presumably citing internal data, that about one-fifth of Americans were familiar with the brand, and even more among veterans and active duty military personnel. “Although the demand for our products has never been stronger, we’re just getting started building our brand awareness.”
Roughly half of its current employees are veterans, and the company has made a commitment to ultimately hire 10,000. Packaging for its coffee products states that a portion of the company’s profits go to groups supporting veterans, law enforcement and first responders.
When the company went public, thanks to a $1.7 billion deal with an Austin-based investment company, its agreement included a provision that gives hundreds of thousands of stock shares in its charitable foundation for veterans.
There’s an undeniable political edge to the brand, which shares a blurry border with the owners’ personal views on polarizing culture war questions. The founders publicly doubled the company’s ad funding for the Joe Rogan podcast after Rogan was criticized for spreading COVID-19 misinformation.
Black Rifle is one of the latest, and perhaps most self-aware, companies that have found politics to be a powerful conduit for brand loyalty. For example, Levi’s and Wrangler, once two jeans brands largely divorced from politics, have gradually come to be declarations of political identity among their consumers.
While the willingness of the founders to use Black Rifle Coffee as a platform for their political views on controversial topics has generated plenty of free publicity, it has also proven polarizing.
An episode last summer is illustrative.
That was when a company co-founder called then-Bexar County Commissioner Trish DeBerry a “garbage politician” after she was dismissive of a budget request from the sheriff’s department for a new rescue boat. The co-founder, Jarred Taylor, posted a photo on Instagram of himself with Best presenting Sheriff Javier Salazar a check from Black Rifle Coffee Company for $32,000, the cost of the boat.
San Antonio-area searches for “black rifle coffee” spiked the next day. And after a public firestorm in which Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff called Taylor’s actions “beyond reprehensible,” local searches spiked again. Google analytics for the San Antonio area showed local interest was double that of the surrounding six months.
Best said the company isn’t intentionally trying to court controversy, but that its consumers appreciate “authenticity.”
“People vote with their dollar,” he said. “When people buy Black Rifle Coffee, they know the mission behind it, and they know they’ll get a great product.”
