A lot of people follow their passions and sometimes that leads to great businesses. If you truly love something, you may be able to share that with other people and build a viable company.
The problem — and it's a big one — is that many other people share the same passions. You might be really good at smoking meat, have great recipes for craft beer, or roast the perfect coffee bean, but so can many others.
Related: Popular craft brewery closes as owner files Chapter 7 bankruptcy
Sometimes, that leads to minibooms, where a city ends up several similar businesses that in some ways support each other. Customers looking for local breweries might come to an area that boasts multiple craft brewers.
That's less likely to happen when it comes to other passion-based businesses. Indeed, how many cups of coffee or barbecue dinners can you have? In these cases, businesses cannibalize each other.
There might even be a clear winner, a best in class, but each player siphons off some customers and everyone fails. It's very similar to what happened during the self-serve-frozen-yogurt boom.
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People liked the product enough for one, maybe two frozen-yogurt shops to thrive in a market, but once more than that opened, everyone struggled and few survived.
The coffee business has been a challenge
A number of regional beer brands and breweries have gone out of business largely due to debt they took on during the covid pandemic. The end of that period coincided with a change in drinking habits that made beer less trendy, and many of the now-closed brands simply could not cover their debt.
The list of closed breweries includes Forgotten Boardwalk Brewing of Cherry Hill, N.J., King State of Tampa, Fla., and even the famed Anchor Brewing of San Francisco closed its doors. (On May 31 Shepherd Futures, the family office of Hamdi Ulukaya, the billionaire founder and CEO of Chobani yogurt, said in a statement that it was going to purchase Anchor Brewing's assets and would relaunch the brand. The purchase price wasn't disclosed.)
A number of other brewers have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and face an uncertain future. These include Roth Brewing of Raleigh, N.C., and, in May, the Harrisburg, Pa., craft brewer SpringGate Vineyard's owner, Schoffstall Farm.
It's a difficult time to be in the passion-based-business game, which has hurt coffee roasters, growers and cafe chains as well. California's Frinj Coffee filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January, and Patis Bakery, a kosher-cafe chain, which has multiple outlets in New York and New Jersey, filed in June.
Now, another coffee brand, Ink Coffee, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on June 20, reporting assets of under $50,000 and debts between $1 million and $10 million.
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Ink Coffee fights for survival
Ink Coffee began in 1994 when Founder Keith Herbert visited Italy to study the art of coffee making.
"He returned with a new appreciation for espresso and set out to make a living making coffee. On a cold winter morning, brewing hot coffee on a stainless steel cart located in Snowmass Village, Ink Coffee was born," the company said on its website.
Related: Fast-food chain fights for survival after Chapter 11 bankruptcy
The coffee brand grew to multiple cafe locations and a roastery.
"Ink Coffee beans are roasted at our facility in Denver's Rino neighborhood. In fact, you can watch the beans roast through the glass wall in our retail shop out front," the company wrote.
"The elevation allows for slower roasting, so we can fully develop the unique and distinct flavors of each of our different blends. Our roaster meticulously roasts every bean on a small batch roaster, by hand, five days a week. No computers, no graphs, no charts to tell us how a certain coffee should be roasted."
More bankruptcy:
- Popular movie theaters owner files Chapter 7 bankruptcy
- Struggling housing brand files Chapter 7 bankruptcy, will liquidate
- Popular restaurant chain shares bad Chapter 11 bankruptcy news
The company's bankruptcy filing does not include a funding or turnaround plan, but its five cafes in metro Denver appear to be open and its website is still taking orders.
Ink Coffee said that it had between 50 and 99 creditors but does not specify them.
