Planting Hope Plots Argo Cafe Revival Via Crowdfunding Campaign

Three months after its acquisition of Argo Tea, The Planting Hope Company has spun off the asset as its own subsidiary. The publicly-traded company is aiming to revive Argo’s brick-and-mortar cafes, many of which were shuttered during the pandemic, as well as make select branded products available to wider audiences.

To support those efforts, Planting Hope has activated a crowdfunding campaign on WeFunder – a decision that its founder and CEO Julia Stamberger described as an effort to allow Argo supporters to connect with the brand and take part in its revival.

“We have had dozens of conversations with ardent Argo fans who are thrilled at the prospect of [its] return,” Stamberger told NOSH. “There is no parallel fast-casual tea café concept – and Gen Z loves tea. Since we made the initial acquisition, we have come to further believe that Argo’s time has come with consumers – now more than ever.”

First up on the product priority list – bubble tea. Prior to its acquisition Argo had developed and sold a proprietary form of boba pearls in drinks at its cafes; its version is made with a natural and prebiotic coconut gel and holds its shape in liquid longer than the three-hour window of traditional tapioca-based pearls. Planting Hope has “rechristened” the item and will bring it back to both cafes as well as make it available to foodservice providers in 2024.

In the cafes, it will enact changes to the operations, employee training methods and menu offerings, tapping the expertise of advisory board member Jessica Gleeson, who launched Starbucks into China in the early 2000s, to support those efforts.

According to Stamberger, the cafes will be retooled to optimize efficiency and performance as well as adopt foodservice best practices and new technology to scale outputs. The company will also recommit to sustainability and revise the cafe’s food, ingredients, materials, packaging, waste and operations with that in mind.

In addition, Planting Hope is working to restore the “original quality of Argo tea” through new ingredient partnerships, many of which were lost when locations were shuttered in 2020 and the company shrunk its footprint of owned cafes. Italian coffee brand illy, which recently launched a regenerative agriculture certified coffee, is one of those inaugural new partners.

Argo will also serve as a testing ground for new Planting Hope products, starting with the addition of Hope and Sesame behind the espresso bar. The company’s current CPG portfolio includes Hope and Sesame, Mozaics vegetable chips, Veggicopia dips and snacks, and RightRice.

Stamberger said that once the new ‘Argo Tea 2.0’ concept has been refined it will look to expand with new locations via operating license partners. It has already received interest to bring Argo to new geographies beyond Chicago and the Northeast where the chain’s only operating locations remain, she said. Planting Hope plans to reopen the flagship Chicago cafe in 2025.