Second Cup Café is marking its fiftieth year in 2025, a milestone that places the brand among Canada’s longest standing coffeehouse names. Founded in 1975 by Frank O’Dea and Tom Culligan in Toronto, the company evolved from a small specialty coffee kiosk into a national network of cafés. The story mirrors the growth of Canadian coffee culture itself, from filter coffee and doughnut counters to a broader embrace of espresso, latte art, and a social café ritual that anchors neighbourhood routines.
“Second Cup isn’t just a coffee brand, it’s part of Canada’s cultural fabric,” says Sam Wadera, Vice President Brand at Second Cup Café. “From its beginnings in 1975 to today, it has a proud legacy of quality coffee, pastries and carefully selected food options as well as the warmth of a welcoming coffee shop.” Wadera adds that the team sees the golden anniversary as both a tribute and a recommitment to the community experience that has defined the brand.
The anniversary arrives under the ownership of Montreal based Foodtastic Inc., which acquired Second Cup in 2021. Since the transaction, the brand has undergone a steady refresh, from menu innovation to store experience and marketing, while reaffirming its roots as a Canadian original. For readers who track the industry closely, this year’s celebrations double as a signal that the brand is leaning into momentum. “With this milestone, we wanted to give guests something fun and nostalgic so they can raise a cup with us and be part of the celebration,” says Foodtastic President and CEO Peter Mammas.
A birthday menu built for celebration
To mark the Second Cup 50th anniversary, the brand has introduced a trio of birthday cake inspired beverages that skew festive, colourful, and deliberately nostalgic. Guests will find the Birthday Cake FroCho, a creamy frozen drink blended with white hot chocolate powder, vanilla, strawberry, milk, and ice, finished with whipped cream and colourful sprinkles. The Birthday Cake Latte offers a warm take on the theme with espresso, steamed milk, and rich vanilla, while the Iced Birthday Cake Latte brings the same flavour profile to a cold format for guests who prefer an iced option.
Mammas notes that the culinary and beverage teams used the anniversary as a creative brief. “The team took advantage of our 50th and they created some 50 year merch, mugs and so on,” he says. “The culinary played a little bit with some kind of desserts to commemorate our 50th.” The approach is playful rather than precious, designed to invite everyday guests into the celebration with flavours that read as a party in a cup.
Commemorative merchandise taps into café culture at home
Beyond the drinks, Second Cup’s anniversary includes a collection of branded merchandise. Mammas describes a lineup that extends the in café experience into daily life for guests who bring their coffee ritual everywhere. “They have like cold bags, they have tumblers, they have cups, they have a cold cup,” he says, noting that the assortment is designed to commemorate the occasion and keep the brand top of mind beyond the café visit. The merchandising strategy reflects a broader retail shift where hospitality names build at home affinity through functional goods that double as souvenirs.
For long time patrons, the anniversary items serve as a tangible link to a brand that has anchored meetings, study sessions, and quiet moments for decades. “For 50 years, Second Cup has been part of the rhythm of daily life in Canada,” says Mammas. “Second Cup is a place where people meet, share ideas, and enjoy the large and small special moments of everyday life over coffee.”
Repositioning under Foodtastic, with stability and a younger edge
Second Cup’s last few years have been a study in steady repositioning. According to Mammas, the Foodtastic acquisition gave the brand room to reset and plan on a long horizon. “I think what happened is stability,” he says of the period since 2021. “Before, I think it kind of lost its way and they were changing CEOs every two years, every three years, and they were all going in different directions. We kind of sat down and, when we bought it, we bought it for the long term.”
That steady hand is visible in a deliberate focus on “liquids,” the internal shorthand that covers core coffee, tea, and specialty beverages, as well as new energy and functional formats. “We really wanted to focus on all our liquids, and we wanted to also make the brand younger,” Mammas says. “If you see from our branding, it is younger, but also all the liquids that we are bringing, the matcha and the cold brews and even the cold Energizer drinks that we have launched. It is all to bring the whole brand younger, cooler, trendier, more relevant today than it ever was.”
The pivot matters in an increasingly crowded market where product novelty, seasonal cadence, and social shareability can set a café apart. For the Second Cup 50th anniversary, the birthday drinks supply the limited edition sparkle. The broader plan, however, is to keep the base menu fresh with formats that appeal to Gen Z and younger millennials, while preserving the comfort drinks that older guests expect.
Cold coffee goes retail, with convenience and grocery distribution
One of the most significant shifts for the brand is the move into ready to drink channels that extend beyond café counters. Mammas confirms that Second Cup is launching a single serve cold coffee at retail in 330 to 355 millilitre cans, a format that competes directly in the convenience and grocery cold box. “We should be signing some deals right now,” he says. “We just got our first couple of POs, so we are going to be in major convenience stores and grocery channels, as well as in stores.”
The ready to drink segment has been among the fastest growing parts of the global coffee category, driven by shoppers who want café quality flavour on the go. For a brand that built its name in cafés, the shift is both defensive and opportunistic. It reinforces brand presence in shoppers’ everyday routines while introducing Second Cup to new consumers who may not live or work near a café. As Mammas puts it, early reaction inside his own family has been a proof point. “They tried ours and they freaked out. The product is really good and already it is doing really well on the retail channel.”
A coffee liqueur joins the lineup, with a major Québec listing
Foodtastic is also taking the Second Cup taste profile into an adjacent category that many Canadian consumers already associate with coffee indulgence. “We are also launching a Second Cup coffee alcoholic beverage, something along the lines of a Baileys,” Mammas says. “We just got an order now from the Québec Liquor Board for over a million dollars to list it, and we are going to be having it also in our other brands like Milestones.”
A coffee cream liqueur leverages the café’s flavour authority in a format that plays well in restaurants and at home, especially in colder months. For the brand, the early order in Québec provides scale and visibility, and it will likely drive cross promotion opportunities in licensed Foodtastic restaurants and, where permitted, in café marketing. The move underscores the company’s willingness to meet guests in more than one consumption moment, from morning iced lattes to evening dessert drinks.
Navigating costs without passing them on
Coffee buyers know that commodity costs have been volatile in recent years. Mammas acknowledges the pressure, while stressing that the company has worked to protect value for guests. “There seems to be some stabilization right now, so we feel that it is going to be coming down a little bit,” he says of coffee input costs. “But we have not raised our prices. We have kept that and we have managed to mitigate it, and we are going to continue to do so for the foreseeable future, because we kind of feel the consumer is a bit stretched and they do not need to bear that.”
It is a message that resonates in an era of inflation fatigue. For cafés, holding the line on price while upgrading quality can build loyalty and foot traffic, especially when combined with limited time offers that create a reason to visit. The Second Cup 50th anniversary menu is one such reason, and the broader pipeline of cold, energy, and functional drinks promises repeat occasions across dayparts.
Store growth across provinces
The anniversary year is also a growth year. “We are doing about 20 new stores in the next 12 months,” Mammas says, noting that the expansion touches “many different provinces.” While he does not name specific sites, the cadence suggests a measured rollout driven by franchisee demand and selective real estate opportunities. For landlords, a refreshed national coffee tenant with an active pipeline is welcome news in urban and suburban formats alike.
The planned café openings align with Foodtastic’s track record of scaling brands by pairing product innovation with franchising capability. It also extends the brand’s community footprint, which has been central to its identity since the early mall kiosk days. As Wadera puts it, the goal is to remain a brand that Canadians can call their own, even as the product mix evolves to suit new tastes.
A trendsetter that helped shape Canada’s espresso era
Beyond the immediate anniversary festivities, there is a longer arc that frames how Second Cup fits into Canada’s coffee story. Mammas credits the chain with bringing European espresso culture into the mainstream of Canadian cafés at a time when filter coffee dominated. “Second Cup was actually the only national, non filtered coffee chain out there,” he says, contrasting the brand’s early emphasis on espressos, cappuccinos, and lattes with the filter coffee norm. “It was one of the trendsetters for the Canadian coffee culture by bringing all that stuff from Europe over to North America.”
That heritage matters because it gives the brand permission to keep interpreting coffee trends for Canadian palates. The birthday menu nods to fun and nostalgia. The pipeline of matcha, cold brew, and energy drinks looks forward. The retail cans and the liqueur widen the map. The through line is a willingness to meet customers where they are, whether that is a morning commute, a university study break, or a dinner out.
A brand on the upswing
Perhaps the most striking claim in this anniversary moment is Mammas’s assessment of performance since the Foodtastic acquisition. “We were lucky enough to buy it in 2021. We spent a lot of time repositioning, rebranding, and improving the restaurants,” he says. “Since then, it has probably been our best performing QSR.” While he is quick to note that Foodtastic’s portfolio is wide, the point is clear. The strategy is working, and the team sees headroom.
Stability has been part of that turnaround. “At least it gave the brand a new sense of stability, a new direction,” he says of the post acquisition period. Consistent brand leadership and a clear beverage focused roadmap have helped franchisees invest with confidence, from equipment upgrades to marketing and training. The Second Cup 50th anniversary then becomes more than a birthday. It is a rally point for operators and guests who have watched the brand weather competition, economic cycles, and a pandemic.
