Locol Launches Affordable Coffee Company, Yes Plz

Well, that didn’t take long. As teased last week, the team behind Locol, the mission-oriented fast-food mini-chain, has spun off its $1 coffee program into a whole new company. The Locol team has just announced Yes Plz, with “plans to eventually open coffee windows and stand-alone shops in addition to supplying its three locations,” reports the New York Times.

Leading the charge is Tonx Coffee co-founder Tony Konecny, who collaborated with Locol founders Roy Choi and Daniel Patterson to put $1 coffee on the original Locol menu. The group now serves the amazingly cheap coffee at both its Watts and Oakland locations, as well as the new Oakland bakery, which debuted in late March. Per the NYT, Yes Plz is now selling bags of coffee for “$8 to $9,” putting them in the same price bracket as Dunkin’ Donuts.

The news comes at a good time for Locol. In a recent California Sunday profile, Patterson revealed that Locol has struggled financially since launching over a year ago. The chef confirmed to Eater that Locol has plans to replicate its Oakland bakery. With Yes Plz offering yet another potential scalable concept, perhaps Locol’s clearest path forward looks less like cheeseburgers, and more like coffee.

• Yes Plz [Official site]
• Has Coffee Gotten Too Fancy? [NYT]