The Company

The Coffeee Fellows GmbH (Ltd.) was founded in Munich in 1999 as a family business by Kathrin and Stefan Tewes. It amazes a lot of people that Coffee Fellows is a German concept, but exactly that, together with family management, is the base of their success. 

The headquarters of the German coffee shop chain is located in Unterföhring. Presently, Coffee Fellows as a franchisor is running more than 230 coffee shops in Germany and Europe, 130 of which can be found at petrol station and rest area locations since 2017. Beyond that, Coffee Fellows has also been represented in Mongolia with 3 shops since 2019 and has thus entered the market in the Asian region. 

High-quality coffee specialties as well as traditionally prepared bagels rank first as core products. In addition to first-class coffee pleasure, Coffee Fellows stands for trendy and cosy furnishings, satisfying the motto „feel at home“. 

As system centre, Coffee Fellows works with about 150 franchise partners, whereby much importance is attached on a fair and respectful relationship, a regular exchange of thoughts and dealing with each other at eye-level.

A look behind the scenes with Galileo and the story of Coffee Fellows. Kathrin and Stefan Tewes tell us how everything started and the ups and downs they had to struggle with.

It becomes clear how the Coffee Fellows brand is steadily evolving.

Coffee Fellows is known for new, innovative business models and its continuous expansion course: So in spring 2018, the company set its foot in the hotel industry and opened its first hotel in Dortmund. In the meantime, Coffee Fellows Hotel can also be found in Trier and Munich - further hotels are being planned. Here, the synergies between coffee shop and hotel are optimally utilized.

Furthermore, Coffeee Fellows has been running the new food concept Foodfactory since March 2020. Beside coffee and bagels from Coffee Fellows, Effe & Gold Burger and Aloha Poke are offering delicious Hawaiian bowls, and Sando & Ichi are serving the rice burger specialty.

Dr Stefan Tewes was born on 24 November 1967 in Mülheim on the River Ruhr. As a competitive athlete in field hockey, he won the gold medal in the Olympics in Barcelona with the German team. He studied Business Administration in Munich and did his doctorate at the University in Duisburg-Essen. In 1999, he opened the first Coffee Fellows shop in Munich together with Kathrin Tewes. He has been living there up to this day with his wife and his four daughters.

Kathrin Tewes studied to become a teacher in Munich. After that, being inspired by the Canadian coffee shop culture, she opened the first Coffee Fellows shop in Leopoldstraße with her husband, herself standing behind the bar every day at first. Today, she takes particular care of the realization of social projects and the sustainability strategy.

Following a couple of leading positions in system catering, Sven Ernst joined the Coffeee Fellows team in 2007. It was quite a small team then, there were just 10 coffee shops.

“I knew I could move something here und become part of the success. I was fascinated from the beginning by the individual and family atmosphere and interaction with each other and the chance to approach matters pragmatically.” 

Today, Sven Ernst can bring in his strengths in operational business on a daily basis. He takes care to make sure that all staff and guests have a great experience with Coffee Fellows every day.In addition to that, he is in charge of the franchise and lease business and acquires new talent as Coffee Fellows franchisees who get supported by him from the first ideas up to the opening of their own coffee shops.

Furthermore, since 2021, Sven and his team have been responsible for the newer business areas Coffee Fellows Hotels and Foodfactory.

The fisrt Coffeee Fellows shop opens in Leopoldstraße in Munich. Beside delicious coffee and bagels, for Kathrin Tewes the furnishing was particularly important from the beginning: high quality and modern, but at the same time comfortable.

The first franchise shop opens in Schützenstraße in Munich. All shops are designed to make the customer feel good and at home. From this principle evolves the slogan Feel at Home that has been experienced till today and is still seen as a guideline.

Coffee Fellows takes over the 25 coffee shops of the Coffee Shop Company which have been primarily rented in shopping centres in Eastern and Northern Germany. As Coffee Fellows is already represented at this point of time with 40 shops mainly in Southern Germany, this means an optimal geographic complement.

Feel like at home also on travelling - due to cooperation with petrol stations and rest areas, 130 Coffee Fellows shops are opening all over Germany.

Coffee Fellows celebrates the opening of more than 200 shops in Europe and says Thank You to all 200 loyal customers who have enabled this growth.

Coffee Fellows in Dortmund achieves the first fusion of coffee shop and hotel – Feel at Home turns to Be at Home, and it is now also the night when you can feel like at home.

Coffee Fellows celebrates their 20 years’ jubilee and takes over the Campus Suite GmbH with a two-brands strategy.

Coffee Fellows opens their first three shops in Mongolia. Even far away from Europe, the motto Feel at Home is lived.

Coffee Fellows extends its business model towards multi-brand gastronomy with the first FoodFactory at the Puma Outlet Center in Herzogenaurach.