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 legislation scholar at Brooklyn Regulation College and had simply been supplied a full-time place at an actual property legislation agency. The one downside was that Zamfotis needed 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 legislation college. By the top of his schooling, he was successfully working the place. He wound up “actually having fun with” the work and contemplating it as a possible profession. He knew he needed to start out a enterprise of his personal at some point, separate from his father’s endeavors. So after graduating from legislation college, 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 He was 24 years outdated. 

“If you happen to have 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 have been Starbucks or Dunkin,” Zamfotis says. “I believed that was an enormous alternative as a result of I grew up working there. I needed to take what I had discovered, apply it to the espresso trade, 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 components and the texture of the place till it earned a everlasting slot in New Yorkers’ each day routines.

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

“We needed 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 every 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 exhausting it will be to do espresso exceptionally effectively at scale. “I assume I used to be shocked at simply how complicated doing espresso rather well was,” he says. “The one means we have 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 type of self-imposed espresso bootcamp. He visited retailers, attended conferences and immersed himself within the craft. “I had to spend so much of time and vitality not solely visiting different espresso retailers, 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 effectively and doing issues nice,” he explains. As he elevated the espresso program and coaching requirements, clients started noticing the distinction — and stored their each day behavior. “Clients, perhaps to start with, have been coming due to all the opposite issues…nice service, quick, handsome retailer…then as soon as I began to raise the espresso program larger and better, whereas additionally conserving all these different components so robust, that’s once we actually began to make issues higher,” he says. 

At this time, Gregorys roasts its personal beans in Lengthy Island Metropolis, bakes contemporary pastries and emphasizes personalization — from milk selections to syrup ranges — whereas nonetheless shifting quick. The purpose, Zamfotis says, is that clients 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 yr two or three. That traction gave him the arrogance to open a second location roughly two and a half years after the primary — and it was an on the spot 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 perform of programs and other people. “I’ve all the time stated you’ll be able to solely develop as quick because the folks [you have] to assist execute,” Zamfotis says. For about 12 years, each single particular person ready 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 yr we did simply round $40 million,” Zamfotis says. “This yr, I imagine the projection is nearer to love $45 million.”

Exploring franchising

In some unspecified time in the future, Gregorys hit a crossroads: preserve 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 workforce ever might. That’s when Craveworthy Manufacturers and its CEO Gregg Majewski stepped in as managing accomplice and company operator in August 2025, bringing a platform constructed for franchising, from coaching to shared companies that might assist a nationwide push.

“We knew that if we needed to proceed to develop the model on the pace that was vital, 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 not simply the underdog Park Avenue café. It’s a New York–cast espresso model entering into the franchise highlight, aiming to promote 50 to 75 areas in its first yr of franchising this yr and welcoming operators to go toe-to-toe with the largest espresso gamers in America.

“Any model that’s been across the trade 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 once you constructed your popularity in one of many hardest cities on the planet to function in, New York,” Majewski says. Gregorys has “a gaggle of regulars that completely stay 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 offers the infrastructure that early franchisees usually lack: coaching, shared companies, building assist and operational programs constructed to duplicate efficiency throughout shops. Craveworthy’s portfolio contains manufacturers like Massive Rooster, Taffer’s Tavern and Genghis Grill. 

For would-be franchisees, Gregorys is now pitching itself as a means right into a coveted phase that may in any other case be exhausting to entry. Majewski notes that “a few of the larger gamers are bought out or aren’t accepting.” Gregorys presents a build-out price “wherever 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 facet, the hurdle is making certain programs and procedures are in place so the corporate can prepare successfully and execute the product constantly. 

On the franchisee facet, the problem is extra psychological: “following the programs and procedures and reminding your self that you just purchased right into a system,” he says. The promise is that if the system is effectively designed and correctly adopted, it exists “for a purpose so that you might 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 sophisticated, you’ll be able to’t have the consistency,” he explains. 

The purpose is that “once you stroll right into a retailer in Indiana or a retailer in California, you get the identical expertise,” he says. For Gregorys, which means 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 each day grind.

20 years in the past, Gregory Zamfotis was at a crossroads. He was a second-year legislation scholar at Brooklyn Regulation College and had simply been supplied a full-time place at an actual property legislation agency. The one downside was that Zamfotis needed 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 legislation college. By the top of his schooling, he was successfully working the place. He wound up “actually having fun with” the work and contemplating it as a possible profession. He knew he needed to start out a enterprise of his personal at some point, separate from his father’s endeavors. So after graduating from legislation college, 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.