If you’ve ever opened a café, you know that opening the doors is only the beginning. Moving beyond start-up mode to scale your footprint, whether through wholesale accounts, a roastery, or an online shop, brings a different set of challenges and risks. When coffee business owners ask us how to navigate that shift, Colin Harmon’s first book, What I Know About Running Coffee Shops, is usually the first resource we hand them. With his follow-up, What I Know About Growing a Coffee Business, Colin steps back from daily management to focus on what it takes to expand without losing your footing.

Drawing on his journey growing Dublin’s 3fe Coffee from a single cart into a multi-site retail, roastery, and wholesale operation, Colin shares the hard-earned lessons behind his success. Whether you’re eyeing a second location, building out a kitchen, or launching a roastery, this book, part of our coffee books collection, offers an honest, practical guide to the decisions that define long-term growth. Key chapters cover retail expansion strategies, roastery development, wholesale dynamics, kitchen management, spin-off projects, and the personal mindset needed when scaling up.

If you’re planning to grow your coffee business, we recommend this as a practical starting point.

Notes on What I Know About Growing a Coffee Business from the publishers

Colin Harmon is a four-time Irish Barista Champion and owner of Dublin's 3fe Coffee, one of the world's most innovative specialty coffee shops. His work in coffee has extended to roasting, training, and consultancy work, as well as developing coffee equipment for the specialty market and beyond.

Building on the foundation of his acclaimed first book, this second instalment delves deeper into the complexities of running a specialty coffee brand. Directly inspired by Colin's hands-on experience expanding 3fe into roasting, training, consultancy, and equipment development, his practical insights provide entrepreneurs with a roadmap for sustainable growth.

What I Know About Growing a Coffee Business book format

• Format: Print hardback
• Page count: 318 pages
• Weight: 735 g
• Dimensions: 230 x 170 x 30 mm