One of the nation’s fastest growing coffee and specialty drink drive-through chains enters the Chattanooga market this week with its first local outlet opening near Northgate Mall.
Dutch Bros, the Grants Pass, Oregon-based restaurant chain, will open a new drive-through coffee outlet at 5102 Hixson Pike on Friday. The new Chattanooga unit, which will be managed by Destiny Musgrave, was built in front of the former Crazy Buffet hibachi grill, which opened in 2018 and shut down within a couple of years after its opening.
The 10,994-square-foot restaurant building that housed the Crazy Buffet was originally a Ryan’s Steakhouse restaurant and is now being remodeled to consolidate and expand the offices for the Hitchcock Family Medicine practice. The buffet sign is still up.
Dutch Bros features coffee and tea concoctions like chocolate crunch cold brew coffee, which comes with Oreo cookie crumbles, and Palm Beach tea, which is flavored with pomegranate and peach syrups. The company also serves beverages with its proprietary energy drink, Rebel. Orders are taken by attendants who come up to car windows.
“Dutch Bros is a strong, healthy business with a very special culture and long runway of growth ahead,” Joth Ricci, chief executive officer of Dutch Bros, said in the company’s most recent fiscal quarter report.