Department of Coffee and Social Affairs buys Bea’s of Bloomsbury

The speciality coffee shop is understood to have bought the Bea’s earlier this year, with the Department of Coffee’s key directors joining the board.

London-based Bea’s has sites in Marylebone, St Paul’s and Russel Square.

The group has acquired two Bristol-based, single-site speciality coffee businesses – The Crazy Fox in The Arcade, and Tradewind Expresso on White Ladies Road – earlier this year. The Bristol sites will be overseen by head of operations (regional) Justin Ward, formerly of Boston Tea Party and Frankie & Benny’s.

Department of Coffee also appears to have acquired Café 2 U, a mobile coffee franchise system previously based in Leeds, with key directors joining the board.

Earlier in the year it bought the three-strong London-based Tap Coffee business.

Bea’s of Bloomsbury was founded by Bea Vo in 2008, and was previously backed by Hussein Kanji of Hoxton Ventures, and investor and journalist Priyanka Gill. Lisa Brook, formerly of Patisserie Holdings and Muffin Break operator Foodco, was chief executive of Bea’s for just over a year, departing alongside the previous board at the time of the Department of Coffee’s acquisition.

Department of Coffee, which is a subsidiary of American-listed DOCASA Inc, has 18 sites in the UK and three in Chicago. It has two City of London sites and two in Manchester in the pipeline, and also operates four internal coffee shops within corporate offices such as JLL Bank.

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