Success Stories
Linea Caffe
In growing from a small cafe into a small empire with a roastery, Andrew’s challenges and opportunities have constantly evolved and shifted.Linea Caffe is a cafe and roasting company started in 2013 by Andrew Barnett. Before he started his own business, Andrew spent a great deal of his time tasting and rating coffees with the best tasters at annual Cup of Excellence tastings and building personal relationships with top growers in Brazil, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Ethiopia.
He started his first business in 2010 as a small cafe in San Francisco, and eventually grew that company — Ecco Caffe — into a local stable that was merged with Intelligensia in 2012.
After that sale and merger, Andrew began Linea as a new project in the Mission District. Over the last few years, that small operation has continued to grow and grow. Linea Caffe has wholesale contracts with businesses such as Google, Bi-rite Market, and others, and after selling his original location to Intelligentsia all those years ago, Andrew is now buying Intelligentsia’s old Potrero Hill Roastery for his second Linea Caffe location.
Master Roaster, Andrew Barnett and his staff carefully roast each batch of coffee beans. “I want to turn people on to the flavors of the world’s finest coffees,” says Barnett. “There are flavors out there in perfectly roasted and prepared coffee that blow people’s minds. Great coffee should be naturally sweet, balanced, complex and elegant, much like the world’s finest wines and chocolates.”
It’s because of that continued growth and success over the last few years that Andrew came to PCV in the first place in 2015. Even though Andrew was a serial entrepreneur at this point, he needed some advice to get his fledgling business off on the right foot. We matched him with advisor Greg Flood, Resident Manager at Davis-Paul Management Group. Greg specializes in working with a small business has fairly solid footing, but needs to get organized to maximize profits. Just what Andrew needed!
After a successful partnership with Greg, Andrew told us he needed financial advice to get his books in order and secure a line of credit. Andrew had an amazing opportunity to secure a supply contract with Google, which would double his business. It also meant he had to double his business!. We paired him with advisor Erick Tjarks, an underwriter at AIC Ventures. Their partnership was a big success: Andrew secured his line of credit and landed the contract with Google, which he’s since leveraged into more supplier deals.
In growing from a small cafe into a small empire with a roastery, Andrew’s challenges and opportunities have constantly evolved and shifted. Since working with Erick, he’s had several other partnerships with amazing advisors like Sanjay Sinha (advising on business banking), Steven Sherman (tax advice), O’Neill Keathley (HR and hiring), and his current advisor Curtis Wilder.
Andrew and Curtis began working together when Linea was opening a second retail location and was seeking funding for the business expansion. Curtis helped Andrew learn how to create business forecasts for Linea’s bank and SBA loan applications, think through internal company strategy, and negotiate a lease and purchase coffee roasting equipment.
In recent months as Andrew’s been gearing up to open his roastery, he’s also been approved for a loan from PCV’s business lending program. We’re excited to work with Andrew and Linea in the years to come to help him create good jobs — and serve some really good coffee.
Could your small business benefit from free advice or a fair and affordable loan? PCV can help. Learn more about our advising program or our loan program.