Here's looking at brew
Setting up shop near Starbucks locations suits Argo to a tea
Argo Tea is getting ready to brew more business in Chicago.
On Tuesday, Argo will open next door to a busy Starbucks inside the Merchandise Mart downtown.
(Brian Jackson/Sun-Times)
The Merchandise Mart store will be the Chicago tea shop chain's 11th. Three more -- including a kiosk at O'Hare Airport -- will open this year. Argo will expand to the East, as well; it's mum on exactly where, but it has scouted Washington and Boston.
Though Tuesday's opening is the first this year, the company expects to step on the gas going forward, Ginal said.
"We've grown very slowly and methodically here in Chicago," she said. "We are looking to move a little bit quicker in the new markets so that we can have more of a presence in the first year."
Odds are that where there's a Starbucks, there's an interest on the part of the rising tea slinger.
That has been Argo's strategy from the start, following the coffee giant into successful neighborhoods, said Kari Ginal, Argo's director of marketing. Arsen Avakian, Simon Simonian and Daniel Lindwasser opened the first Argo Tea at Armitage and Sheffield avenues in 2003.
"They are looking at the same things we're looking at; for foot traffic and the type of neighborhoods that are hip and fun and underdeveloped," she said. "If we could get the corner across from them or kitty-corner from them, then absolutely; jump on it!"
Argo, whose customers are typically young, female and professional, also is riding a wave of tea consumption. The drinks are getting a boost from studies that suggest they carry health benefits, according to research firm Packaged Facts, which expects tea sales will hit $15 billion by 2012, about twice what they were last year.
Specialty tea, about 36 percent of the U.S. tea market, is expected to expand to more than 50 percent of all tea and ready-to-drink sales.
A 200-employee operation, Argo maintains a central brewing room at its State and Randolph location. It sells hot and iced tea, sandwiches and pastries.