01 — The long way round
It started with
It started with
a bad cup of coffee
In the summer of 2011, Ola and Hannad went to London and Rome — and realised coffee doesn't have to taste bad. Back home, Dubai offered a choice between mainstream franchises and small places pouring something worse. So they read everything, trained, and opened their own.
- 2011
A trip to London and Rome. The penny drops: coffee doesn't have to taste bad.
- 2012
Spill the Bean opens. First mover into a specialty market that barely existed — competition, as Hannad puts it, was virtually non-existent.
- Now
Two neighbourhood cafés, a growing roastery, quantified sustainability targets, and a bakery in the works built on ancestral grains.
2012Trading since
2Dubai branches
FTWorld's best, listed
134Things on the menu