First we take Manhattan, then we take Paris
Local upmarket café Coco Safar plans to go further
CocoSafarhas opened in Rosebank, Joburg, after gaining a dedicated following in Cape Town, where it has a handful of elegant coffee shops and cafés. But it’s the next big launch in New York that the “elevated luxury” brand is hoping will set it on a global growth trajectory.
Co-owner Wilhelm Liebenberg has been wanting to open a store in the Big Apple for nearly two decades. After several delays during Covid, he now plans to launch it later this year in the Flatiron District.
Liebenberg grew up in Pretoria, where his parents owned bakeries and were involved in catering. “My parents were fearless,” he tells the FM.
He moved to Montreal, where he opened a string of cafés in the early 2000s.
In New York, he and his partner, Caroline Sirois a French Canadian plan to replicate their South African model of cafés designed to evoke old-world coffee houses. “We’re looking at bringing Cape Town chic to New York,” he says.
He and Sirois have worked in a range of sectors from packaging and advertising to music,fashion and property development, and have tried to distil this broad experience into Coco Safar.
The US isn’t virgin territory for them they once coowned a marketing agency that counted Canada’s Cirque du Soleil among its clients. “Manhattan in my opinion is the most influential city on the planet,” says Liebenberg. “Whether it’sfashion, design or food, New York has thathalo you cantake the same thing and launch it in Boston or London, and you will not even have 20% of the exposure.”
But he concedes that New York is a tough city to do business in. “The things you can get away with in Africa you can’t do there it’s by the book and there are lots of hoops to jump through,” he says.
But Coco Safar isn’tjust about the cafés and coffee; it’s part of a wider vision for a multifaceted “legacy brand” along the lines of Hermès or Louis Vuitton.
The New York launch will lean heavily on “superfoods”, including rooibos. “The rooibos family has 9,000 species and within fynbos, there are four types of mint,” says Liebenberg.
New Yorkers, he expects, will take to these herbal offerings in the same way they got behind Japanese matcha tea.
“The biosphere of the Cape floral kingdom is even more diverse than the Amazon.”
CocoSafar’s local kitchens are halaal, which ensures a loyal Muslim following, and Liebenberg plans to do the same in New York.
Last October, CocoSafar ran a pop-up shop in Rosebank, triggering a frenzy in which 8,500 croissants were sold in 2½ days. Its food emporium sells gift boxes and a small but expanding range of products such as biscuits and elegantly packaged coffee pods.
Liebenberg has long been a fan of coffee culture. “The world didn’t need another bakery or coffee if it wasn’t special,” he says of his inspiration for Coco Safar. Rather than sipping coffee in a grungy, minimalistic place, why not inject some energy into the décor?
“It was never about being pretentious, it was really about being authentic and [providing] escapism for the price of a coffee and a croissant We’re creatures of emotion, we’re sensory and visceral,” he says.
Still, New York is a big gamble, not least because just one food brand from South Africa has ever made an impact globally Nando’s.
The business is self-funded, and Liebenberg says “several dollar billionaires” have shown interest in buying a stake. “I could have sold out, [but then] I never really did this for money
this was to do something remarkable and create a legacy brand.”
Most of the custom fixtures and furniture will be shipped to New York from Cape Town, where they are made solid oaktables, handblown Murano glass, mirrors and sofas.
The flagship CocoSafar at the V&A Waterfront has been open for several months, and there are cafés in Sea Point and at Constantia Uitsig.
Meanwhile, it’s not only in New York that Liebenberg and Sirois are about to launch a store; they are also exploring Paris aspart of their global foray.