First, Revival Tea Company expanded its food menu into Phoenix Cafe. Next? 50 more tea locations nationwide.

Revival Tea Co. launched a new cafe with acai, coffee, boba tea, toast and grab-and-go bites on Spokane’s busiest weekend of the year.

“We soft-launched Phoenix Cafe Hoopfest weekend, which was a really great experience, kind of stress-tested it with 300,000 people downtown,” said Drew Henry, founder and CEO of Revival Tea Co. “But the grand opening was the Saturday after Hoopfest.”

The tea company’s original tasting room first opened in 2018, in an old speakeasy in downtown Spokane with a limited menu of tea, chai and mocktails.

“We grew into the fastest growing tea company in the United States, and we’ve done our own manufacturing up to this point downtown,” Henry said.

Spokane was first introduced to Revival Tea Co.’s lengthened menus early in 2023 after the business took over 415 W. Main Ave., Suite 100, previously home of Sweet Peaks Ice cream, located above the speakeasy.

“When we first took over the space, we opened it up as just a boba bar, which was just to test boba as a menu item,” Henry said. “Then boba turned into seven of our 10 top-selling drinks as a company.”

Henry said it’s been incredible how quickly people have taken to the new menu items.

“I was born and raised in Spokane, my wife was born and raised in Spokane, Spokane has lifted us up and supported us more than we could ever give back,” Henry said. “We try to do the best we can.”

Revival gives back to the supportive and uplifting community that Spokane has cultivated by giving back to the youth. They feed about 60 kids a week with Bite2Go, Henry said.

Fighting food insecurity in Spokane is important to Henry.

“We also send food to kids on free and reduced lunch during the weekends,” he said.

As the Revival business model expands, Henry keeps his community in mind.

“We are currently doing a community round where nonaccredited investors, our customers, can actually invest in Revival Tea,” he said. “It is a way to invite our customers to come on our journey with us and we have raised $313,000 in the first two months. Our customers now get a chance to own their part of Revival.”

Over the next 10 years, Revival will open 50 locations nationwide, all home to a Phoenix Cafe. “Our next corporate location will be down in Phoenix, Arizona, with an anticipated opening date of 2026,” Henry said.

Each location will have the two businesses side-by-side with the integration of each individual city’s personalities. “The original location has become so beloved, we don’t want to mess that up,” Henry said. “There will never be another spot like that, and we can’t duplicate it, it’s definitely very unique.”

These new locations will look like Revival’s Coeur d’Alene location, one of the current three, combining Spokane’s downstairs and upstairs in one, but with the addition of a drive-thru.

“We will continue to test new products and ideas in Spokane,” Henry said. “As we open shops coast to coast, Spokane is where we test ideas and all that. A lot of national chains open locations in Spokane as their test market, so the fact that we started here is pretty cool and an advantage.”

We’ve known we wanted to do coffee and add more food options, so being able to rebrand that space to roll out the coffee, and the toasts and the {span}açaí {span}is really cool, kind of like anything we do, we launch in Spokane first.”

In response to the many businesses downtown that close on Mondays, Henry wants Phoenix Cafe to fill the gap for people who work downtown. Revival is open seven days a week, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Along with the need for expanded hours, there were limited options for people who were interested in more than tea.

“I feel like there was a group of people we weren’t able to serve, I own a tea company, but I love coffee as well,” Henry said. “So being able to serve coffee lovers and grab-and-go food options is really cool.”

Phoenix has a full coffee and espresso bar using local roaster Roast House.

“We still have the boba drinks that have become iconic over the last couple of years and a full toast menu which we’re kind of just scratching the surface on,” Henry said. “We’ve got three out right now and there’s a fourth toast coming out in a couple weeks which is a more savory option.”

“We’re looking to do some more seasonal options, too,” he added.

The açaí cups have been popular among customers, who can build their own creations.

“We have a traditional one and our blue one, based on our blue tea,” Henry said. “Customers can add the granola, the peanut or almond butter, the different fruits and toppings to it as well. It’s definitely made Revival more well-rounded.”

Spokane’s new menu items with Phoenix Cafe have been successful and alone have equated for over 1,000 sales in the month of July. The Coeur d’Alene location brought 600 sales.

“Essentially in just one month, those additional menu items added about $10,000 in revenue in the Spokane location,” Henry said.

Henry is proud to expand to a more diverse customer base and continues to listen to feedback from his community.

“The fact that we get to offer a diverse menu that serves a little bit of everything to different types of customers, we were always known as this tea vendor, and that’s always been the name, but the fact now that people are looking for a healthier option and they can come in and get a latte or a cold brew and we can serve them is so cool,” Henry said. “It’s exciting to try things at a local business that started here that aren’t anywhere else, but in 10 years will be served in one of the tasting rooms in a different city.”

Henry walked into the Coeur d’Alene location a couple weeks ago.

“There was an older couple, in their 80s, sitting down and enjoying their toast together,” he said. “That’s so cool because I guarantee those people walked in looking for a quick bite and we wouldn’t have been able to provide them with what they were looking for a couple months ago, but now we can serve them.”

As a Spokanite, founder and CEO Henry is eager for his business to give back to the community that raised him, “Spokane has supported (Revival) in a way that we can never repay.”