At Age 24, He Ditched Becoming a Lawyer to Open a Coffee Shop. Last Year It Brought In $40 Million.

20 years in the past, Gregory Zamfotis was at a crossroads. He was a second-year regulation pupil at Brooklyn Regulation College and had simply been provided a full-time place at an actual property regulation agency. The one downside was that Zamfotis wished to open his personal enterprise. 

“I grew up within the meals enterprise,” he explains in a brand new interview with Entrepreneur. “My father operated various ideas in New York Metropolis, so I grew up working with him.”

Zamfotis labored at his father’s sandwich store throughout his time in regulation faculty. By the tip of his schooling, he was successfully operating the place. He wound up “actually having fun with” the work and contemplating it as a possible profession. He knew he wished to start out a enterprise of his personal sooner or later, separate from his father’s endeavors. So after graduating from regulation faculty, he took his curiosity and keenness for espresso and his expertise working in meals service, and determined to open his personal espresso store. He was 24 years outdated. 

“When you had been within the Midtown Monetary District, the areas the place nearly all of New Yorkers are spending their time working, the one choices for espresso actually had been Starbucks or Dunkin,” Zamfotis says. “I believed that was an enormous alternative as a result of I grew up working there. I wished to take what I had realized, apply it to the espresso business, and do it in part of town that was extraordinarily underserved on the time.”

Zamfotis began by opening one espresso bar on Park Avenue and determined it will merely be higher than something round it. The plan was to obsess over the drinks, the substances and the texture of the place till it earned a everlasting slot in New Yorkers’ every day routines.

Day after day, cup after cup, that little store was a magnet for regulars who didn’t similar to the espresso; they had been loyal to the model. The identification sharpened round daring, playful branding and a menu that refused to chop corners. 

“We wished to do a high quality specialty espresso operation in a quantity setting,” Zamfotis says, describing early days when he put in “70 to 80 hours per week” on the retailer to verify it ran precisely as he envisioned.

What shocked him

What Zamfotis didn’t absolutely perceive on the time was how onerous it will be to do espresso exceptionally properly at scale. “I suppose I used to be shocked at simply how complicated doing espresso very well was,” he says. “The one means we had been gonna win is that if we might differentiate ourselves from the nationwide gamers or the opposite folks doing espresso across the block.”

That realization pushed him right into a form of self-imposed espresso bootcamp. He visited outlets, attended conferences and immersed himself within the craft. “I had to spend so much of time and power not solely visiting different espresso outlets, touring, going to conferences, listening to audio system, and simply pouring myself actually into all issues espresso, to make myself an knowledgeable,” he says.

That work modified the tradition and the product. “There’s a distinction between doing issues properly and doing issues nice,” he explains. As he elevated the espresso program and coaching requirements, prospects started noticing the distinction — and stored their every day behavior. “Clients, possibly at first, had been coming due to all the opposite issues…nice service, quick, handsome retailer…then as soon as I began to raise the espresso program increased and better, whereas additionally holding all these different components so robust, that’s once we actually began to make issues higher,” he says. 

In the present day, Gregorys roasts its personal beans in Lengthy Island Metropolis, bakes contemporary pastries and emphasizes personalization — from milk selections to syrup ranges — whereas nonetheless transferring quick. The objective, Zamfotis says, is that prospects ought to really feel like they’re sacrificing nothing: not time, not high quality, not choices.

Scaling from one retailer to 53 — and to $45 million

Zamfotis estimates the primary store took 12 to 18 months to seek out consistency; the corporate hit the $1 million annual gross sales mark round 12 months two or three. That traction gave him the boldness to open a second location roughly two and a half years after the primary — and it was an instantaneous hit. 

“When the primary location might have taken 12 to 18 months to stabilize, the second location was secure from the get-go…very busy from the day we opened,” he says.

From there, development turned a operate of methods and folks. “I’ve at all times stated you may solely develop as quick because the folks [you have] to assist execute,” Zamfotis says. For about 12 years, each single particular person able of authority at Gregorys was promoted from inside, usually beginning as baristas.

That philosophy helped the corporate increase from two shops to 53 throughout New York, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., Florida, California, Arizona and Tennessee. The financials now mirror that footprint. “Final 12 months we did simply round $40 million,” Zamfotis says. “This 12 months, I imagine the projection is nearer to love $45 million.”

Exploring franchising

In some unspecified time in the future, Gregorys hit a crossroads: maintain grinding out company shops one after the other, or admit that the “unbelievable field” they’d constructed was robust sufficient to share with different operators and scale quicker than a single crew ever might. That’s when Craveworthy Manufacturers and its CEO Gregg Majewski stepped in as managing associate and company operator in August 2025, bringing a platform constructed for franchising, from coaching to shared providers that might assist a nationwide push.

“We knew that if we wished to proceed to develop the model on the velocity that was essential, the one means was to connect to franchising,” Majewski tells Entrepreneur in a brand new interview. 

Now, with a 20-year monitor file and a typical retailer pulling in roughly $1 million in annual income (with excessive performers round $1.6 million and drive-thru fashions at about $1.4 million), Gregorys is now not simply the underdog Park Avenue café. It’s a New York–solid espresso model moving into the franchise highlight, aiming to promote 50 to 75 areas in its first 12 months of franchising this 12 months and welcoming operators to go toe-to-toe with the most important espresso gamers in America.

“Any model that’s been across the business so long as that and has been profitable in as many markets because it has over the 20-year timeframe is ideal for franchising — particularly if you constructed your fame in one of many hardest cities on this planet to function in, New York,” Majewski says. Gregorys has “a bunch of regulars that completely reside and die [for] this model,” Majewski explains. 

Craveworthy Manufacturers brings scale muscle to franchising ambition. The agency has 21 manufacturers in its portfolio, eight of that are already franchising, and it supplies the infrastructure that early franchisees usually lack: coaching, shared providers, development assist and operational methods constructed to duplicate efficiency throughout shops. Craveworthy’s portfolio consists of manufacturers like Huge Rooster, Taffer’s Tavern and Genghis Grill. 

For would-be franchisees, Gregorys is now pitching itself as a means right into a coveted section that may in any other case be onerous to entry. Majewski notes that “among the greater gamers are bought out or aren’t accepting.” Gregorys presents a build-out price “anyplace from $200,000 to $700,000,” he says.  

Why franchising works

Majewski is evident about why he believes franchising works, not only for Gregorys however throughout Craveworthy’s portfolio. On the franchisor aspect, the hurdle is making certain methods and procedures are in place so the corporate can prepare successfully and execute the product constantly. 

On the franchisee aspect, the problem is extra psychological: “following the methods and procedures and reminding your self that you just purchased right into a system,” he says. The promise is that if the system is properly designed and correctly adopted, it exists “for a motive so that you may be profitable.”

Majewski insists that tradition is the differentiator in a profitable franchise. He says success comes from “establishing an unbelievable tradition within the system” and ensuring operations are easy sufficient to duplicate. “If any idea is ever too difficult, you may’t have the consistency,” he explains. 

The objective is that “if you stroll right into a retailer in Indiana or a retailer in California, you get the identical expertise,” he says. For Gregorys, meaning defending not solely the espresso high quality and menu but additionally the texture of a model born on Park Avenue and refined in New York Metropolis’s every day grind.

20 years in the past, Gregory Zamfotis was at a crossroads. He was a second-year regulation pupil at Brooklyn Regulation College and had simply been provided a full-time place at an actual property regulation agency. The one downside was that Zamfotis wished to open his personal enterprise. 

“I grew up within the meals enterprise,” he explains in a brand new interview with Entrepreneur. “My father operated various ideas in New York Metropolis, so I grew up working with him.”

Zamfotis labored at his father’s sandwich store throughout his time in regulation faculty. By the tip of his schooling, he was successfully operating the place. He wound up “actually having fun with” the work and contemplating it as a possible profession. He knew he wished to start out a enterprise of his personal sooner or later, separate from his father’s endeavors. So after graduating from regulation faculty, he took his curiosity and keenness for espresso and his expertise working in meals service, and determined to open his personal espresso store. He was 24 years outdated.