If you’re a Grey’s Anatomy fan and travelling to north west USA, you may want to drop into Tully’s Coffee, a small coffee chain in Seattle. It’s just been purchased by ‘McDreamy’ – actor Patrick Dempsey – and he intends rolling up his sleeves and being seen at the coalface, serving behind the counter.
Dempsey has purchased Tully’s through his company Global Baristas and plans to keep the Tully’s brand. In doing, so Dempsey beat a rival bid and a legal action by the global franchise Starbuck’s who wanted to buy Tully’s themselves and convert them into more Starbucks.
Dempsey had reportedly offered $9.2 million for the purchase while Starbucks offered $10.6 million.
Dempsey declared victory on Twitter: "We met the green monster, looked her in the eye, and...SHE BLINKED! We got it! Thank you Seattle!”
The win is a rare setback for Starbucks which has long been both praised for bringing "coffeehouse culture" to the US and criticised for crushing smaller chains. There are currently 18,000 Starbucks in the world with plans to make it 20,000 in the next two years.
Dempsey said in an interview last week that as the underdog in Seattle, Tully's will need to find its identity.
"It's a much smaller chain that has a lot of potential and which hasn’t had the capital to give it proper care," he said.
Dempsey said he planned to be very involved in the running of the company, adding that the immediate challenges were to address bookkeeping issues, staff morale and sprucing up the coffee shops. Once the business is stabilised, Dempsey said the long-term goal would be to take the chain national in the US.
"We can pull this off. We just have to take steps that are slow and smart," he said. "I'm going to get behind the counter. I'm going to serve coffee ... I'm going to give the company a boost of energy."
Although Dempsey lives in Los Angeles, he plans to spend more time in Seattle, the city where Grey's Anatomy is set. Dempsey said he believed there is room in the city for Tully's and the much larger Starbucks; he noted there might be people who are rooting for the underdog.
"In a society where there are so many big corporations that swallow the little guy, we thought, let's not let this happen to this company," he said.
Dempsey made his first appaearnce at a Tully's near Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle, meeting workers and greeting customers before visiting other stores. Several dozen people, mostly women, came into the store.
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