Would you have invested? I bet the margins on coffee are ridiculous – it's just water and coffee beans, at the end of the day – but do you think there's a large market (outside of NYC and SF) for such an artisan offering? Would you have invested?

Uh oh, we have dueling branches: branch.com

Short version: I'm hopeful, but skeptical that they can appeal to a very large american market.

WTH since when are brick and mortar coffee shops venture-fundable? Unless they're planning some aggressive e-commerce expansion, which seems a little silly given their brand is so early and the majority of the country can't afford $4+ cups of coffee.

I love me some iced New Orleans, but I am fairly sure iced New Orleans can't be drop-shipped.

They're almost certainly raising for a vision outside of more than brick and mortar (or, at least, hopefully).

Starbucks isn't just a coffee company anymore. The Starbucks app is in the top 20 free apps on the App Store since they've been starting to basically become a payments processing company. Blue Bottle probably won't remain "just a coffee company" for long anymore, either.

Bottom line: the coffee industry is no longer about coffee, and BB's quiet (and big) raise is probably a sign of bigger things to come.

also, as a side note, I obviously disagree that ultra-premium coffee can appeal to a "mainstream" market.

Interesting move here.. I'm guessing the money is to be used to rapidly expand into more markets, given the successful prototypes in SF & NYC.

It takes a bit of effort to source beans properly – like any harvest, the beans you get are shifting. But, once you have that under control, as BB has in the two aforementioned markets, you can probably simply multiply rather than reinventing the wheel.

That said, it seems that whenever any retail establishment tries to rapidly expand it ends in dismal failure.

what do y'all think the money's for?

For those interested, I posted these related questions on Quora: 1) "What does Blue Bottle plan to do with the $20M?"
2) "What should Blue Bottle do with the $20M?