La Colombe Coffee Roasters

La Colombe Coffee Roasters is an American coffee roaster and retailer founded in 1994 by Todd Carmichael and Jean-Philippe Iberti, who bonded over coffee at a Seattle grunge concert and set out to bring a higher standard of specialty coffee to the United States. The pair launched their first Philadelphia location as La Colombe Torrefaction, sourcing beans directly from growers and roasting in small batches — a practice still rare in the U.S. at the time.

Early years were lean, with the founders working through near-empty bank accounts and Carmichael apprenticing in a French restaurant to master espresso technique. Around 2008 the company opened a New York City location, betting the city's coffee market was underserved. That expansion turned La Colombe from a respected local roaster into a rapidly growing national brand.

In 2015, the company launched the Draft Latte, a nitrogen-infused canned coffee drink that became a national sensation and now appears in roughly one in three U.S. grocery stores. The product established La Colombe as a leader in ready-to-drink coffee and shifted it from a cafe-focused roaster into a nationally distributed consumer brand.

In 2023, Chobani acquired La Colombe outright for $900 million. Today, La Colombe operates cafes across major U.S. cities, employs hundreds of people, and sells coffee, cold brew, and canned lattes through its own stores, grocery chains, and direct-to-consumer channels.