LiftOff Coffee & Tea, a coffee company created for Walmart, recently celebrated its grand opening at the Garland Walmart Supercenter at 555 West Interstate 30.
LiftOff CEO Steve Chang, who has been in the food and beverage business for 18 years, knows that a great product and exceptional service are vital for success. He also understands that the ‘best cup of coffee’ means different things to different people.
“I’ve traveled the world tasting coffee, everywhere from Costa Rica where the farms are, all the way to Italy where the espresso originated, and what I found was that the definition of what a good coffee is going to change from region to region, from person to person,” he said. “It’s all subjective and up to an individual to decide what the best coffee is.”
On the custom
er service side, patrons save time because there are no confusing drink names on the menu. Customers do not have to read through a long, complicated list to decide on a beverage. Additionally, they can get exactly what they want without having to know any special terminology.
“What we want to provide here is great service, fast service so customers can come in, do their shopping and be on their way,” Chang said. “We want to provide a ‘moment of lift off of coffee and tea.’ That’s why it’s called Liftoff Coffee.”
Another plus is that all of the employees are from Garland or the Garland area.
“While we are coming in from Pasadena, we love being part of this community and the folks that are working here will be part of this community,” Chang said.
He explained that the reason they chose Texas as their first “launchpad” is because Texas is a great cross-section of America with a lot of diversity. He added that the people in Texas “are from all over the place, age-wise, gender-wise, socio-economically” so he felt that it would be a good testing ground.
He first pitched the LiftOff idea to Walmart just under a year ago. They came to an agreement on the details and the design, which begins with a repurposed shipping container, was completed early this summer.
“For me, it was the idea of how to create a space within Walmart quickly and how to make it stand out and at the same time blend in,” Chang said. “It took about three weeks to build it in Wisconsin and get it shipped down here. We installed it in one night.”
He added that he had long wanted to find a way to reuse shipping containers.
“We are a consuming nation less than an exporting one so we bring a lot of stuff in and the containers get piled up and they don’t get used,” he said.
Our name is LiftOff which is a little bit of a rocket theme and the shipping container gives it the feel of a space station.
The Garland location is currently one of two in Texas. The other is in Mansfield. Six more locations will open in the DFW area in the near future.
The hours of operation are seven days a week, 7 a.m. – 9 p.m.
About LiftOff Coffee: At LiftOff we believe hospitality can be simple. Using the latest technologies that the coffee & tea industry has to offer, we make sure making delicious drinks becomes easier so that serving our guest becomes the focus. So advanced, it’s as simple as 3-2-1 LiftOff. More information: https://www.liftoffcoffee.com/ or Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/liftoffcoffee.