Mos Mos Coffee is the new generation coffee experience. Created in 2014 in Toronto, the Mos Mos view is simple – brew the perfect cup of coffee experience. There is no doubt that life in the city can be busy, but Mos Mos is on a mission to help remind us to take a few minutes out of our day to “Mos Mos”: cut the noise and savour the moment.
And the coffee shop is continuing to expand its reach in the greater Toronto area with plans to extend its footprint beyond the Toronto region.
There are currently 10 locations with two more under construction. The most recent opening was at 1 University Avenue across from Union Station.
Armin Yassaie, one of the partners in the business, said after the opening of the first Mos Mos location at 199 Bay Street (Commerce Court), the first three years were dedicated to fine tuning its concept, curating the well-known drinks that Mos Mos customers have come to know and love. In 2017, Mos Mos opened its second location at 130 King Street West (Exchange Tower), and what would initiate its expansion.
“We found out we had something special here and we wanted to bring that experience to more and more people in the Downtown core,” said Yassaie. “Later that year we opened our third location, and we continued to expand from there”. In 2019, Staples Canada approached us prior to the launch of their co-working concept to join forces.
“The debut of the Staples [STUDIO], which is a co-working concept where people can come and have a coffee, have meetings while also able to shop and access an array of marketing and printing services. We opened our fifth location at the Staple’s 375 University location. The launch went great and we decided to join forces again to open a second location at the Staples 517 Richmond Street East location.
“The impacts on COVID were not something we could foresee. We had to quickly pivot. We are proud to say that we did not permanently close any locations, although during peak COVID, the stores were drastically slower. We had to fine-tune the operations and logistics to get through that time and saw it as an opportunity to focus on other aspects of the business like launching our franchising platform. We launched franchising at Mos Mos and we now have five franchisees that own eight stores. We have fantastic franchisees that are dedicated to the Mos Mos mission and ensuring our customers are getting the same quality experience they have come to know us for. We work with our franchisees to collaborate so they can come to us if they have an idea on how to elevate our experience at Mos Mos. We want feedback from everyone, whether that’s our franchisees or our customers.”
He said the company has been approached for other areas outside of downtown Toronto in other cities including Vancouver and out west, however, we want to be fully ready for an expansion outside of Ontario, and are hopeful that day will come sooner than later.
“That may not be in the works right now since our focus is on our Ontario operations but it’s certainly a goal for the future,” said Yassaie.
The coffee shop’s name comes from Yassaie’s business partner and Mos Mos founder, who is Kenyan. The word originates from a dialect of Swahili they speak in Kenya and it means ‘savour the moment.’
“We try to go above and beyond and it’s not just the product. It’s also the service and the experience.”
“At Mos Mos there is something for everyone. Whether you are looking for the perfect cup of morning coffee, a new wave “double, double” experience, a smooth and balanced handcrafted latte, or a warmed spiced Chai, we have you covered. We are excited to see where we can take this and thank all of our loyal customers who have been with us throughout the years and who we share a part of each day with”
