15 Years of Lucky Goat – Our Coffee Through the Years
In 2025, Lucky Goat is celebrating 15 years of business – that's a decade and a half of coffee roasting, deliveries to wholesale cafes across the Southeast, and Luckyccinos served in retail cafes. But we didn’t always look exactly as we do today – booming cafes spread across Tallahassee and a growing network of franchises that span from Texas to South Florida. In 2010, we started our journey roasting coffee as Lucky Goat, and we are here to talk about how we, and some of our favorite products, have changed through the years.
Our Transition from Wholesale to Retail
To start with the most obvious change, we didn’t open our first retail cafe under the Lucky Goat brand until 2015. From 2010 to 2015, we were exclusively a wholesale business. We roasted coffee and sold these products and “allied supplies” (syrups, alternative milks, cups, etc.) to other cafes in the Southeast. We would have described ourselves as a wholesale roaster and supplier and our education team often describes this wholesale sector of our business as a “one-stop shop” to get everything you need to run a cafe. This was our foundation, and it allowed us to really nail the basics before a cafe under the Lucky Goat banner came to be.
By the time 2015 came around, we had so many requests to open a cafe of our own, that we successfully opened 3 cafes in 2 years, and the rest is history!
Gallons of Cold Brew
Shortly after we opened our first retail cafe, in the summer of 2016, we introduced gallon jugs of cold brew to our Tallahassee cafes. With the recent increase in cold brew popularity, our cafes really saw success in this category, and we wanted to highlight an at-home alternative. These gallons remain a key part of our menu offerings today, alongside the refillable growlers that offer a smaller sized and sustainable option for a cold brew at home.
The Making of the Luckyccino
Early on in Lucky Goat’s success, the “Tallyccino” became one of the most popular items on our drink menu. It was a cold brew drink with a sweetened vanilla cream that we made in house. If this sounds familiar, that’s because technically, it’s still on our menu! This fan favorite drink became the “Luckyccino” when we started expanding into new markets outside of Tallahassee in 2020, and needed a more neutral sounding name to avoid confusing our customers, it kept the same classic recipe, but became easier to brand in new cities across the South.
The Signature Drink Line
Maybe our most exciting release for our customers, our signature drink line launched in March of 2022. This lineup has changed since then, but our original release of signature drinks included the Brown Sugar Caramel latte, the Honey Lavendar Latte, and the Sparkling Americano. As of this summer, the Sparkling Americano has transitioned into a seasonal summer drink, and the Strawberry Shortcake Latte has become the newest signature drink. We have loved highlighting these drinks to our customers with a year-round spot on our menu, and they are often our most popular drinks!
The Signature Coffee Line
In October of 2022, we developed our Signature Coffee Line. This coffee lineup contains seven coffees that truly are our “tried and true” offerings. Some of these coffees have even been with us since we started roasting coffee for wholesale customers, making them older than our retail cafes! Highlighting this lineup as our signature collection positions these blends as the coffees that helped shape our brand and ones our customers can trust. This lineup includes your favorites, like Billy Goat, Midnight Express Colombia Supremo, and Lucky 7 Espresso. Shop the rest of the signature line up here.
Single Serve Coffee Pods
Shortly after our signature coffee release, we launched a brand-new retail product for our company—Single Serve Coffee Pods. By their launch in November of 2022, we had so many requests for this convenient product that we simply couldn’t ignore it anymore! We now offer five of our coffees in single serve pod format and occasionally launch our most popular seasonal coffees in this way, too!
Nitro Cold Brew
In May of 2023, our Cold Brew got a facelift—one that was long overdue! We took our classic cold brew on tap and installed nitrogen infusers to ensure that our Cold Gold always had the smooth and creamy texture. After a few small recipe tweaks, we brought back the nitrogen infusion we always intended for our cold brew. This method has proven to be the most consistent way to achieve it. We launched this adjustment as Nitro Cold Brew and have seen such an improvement in this section of our menu. To read more about this change, read our blog here.
Seasonal Sips
As another staple for us, our seasonal sips menus started being released during 2023. It started with our Summer Sips that offered unique iced drinks like the Matcha Lemonade. We loved having the option of offering new, seasonal drinks to our customers and continued the effort in September with our Fall Sips. Shortly after this, we launched our Holiday Sips, and it became clear that these would be fun rotating menus that we could offer each year. Some drinks stay the same year-to-year and some change with new and exciting flavors!
The 2 Pound Bag
During the holiday season of 2024, we launched a brand-new size for our retail coffee. For years, we have only sold 12 oz bags of coffee in our cafes, and 5lb bags of coffee online. This new product was a 2lb bag of select coffees sold on our retail shelves – allowing our customers to stock up on some of their favorites without having to wait on shipment from our production facility. These are a popular choice for customers who need a little more coffee at a time than our 12 oz offerings.
Panama Gesha
Also during our holiday season in 2024, we launched our company’s first Gesha. This exquisite variety of coffee is rare and incredibly sought after for its delicate floral tasting notes and tea-like body. These are some of the most expensive coffees in the world, and we were excited to bring one to Tallahassee! We originally launched this amazing coffee in a presale and then rereleased it as part of a sampler called the Elite Trio. We are excited to offer more exceptional coffees to our customer base and hope this is just the beginning.
We’ve grown a lot over the last 15 years with new cafes, new products, and new ways to connect with coffee lovers, but our mission has stayed the same: to Make Great Coffee. It’s what drives every decision we make and every cup we brew. Whether you’ve been with us from the start or just discovered Lucky Goat, we’re grateful for your support. Here's to 15 years of coffee, community, and growth — and to many more to come.
