A Rock Hill coffee company plans three more locations. They’ll start in Fort Mill
A coffee company born in Rock Hill is ready for expansion into Fort Mill.
Knowledge Perk is a coffee roaster, wholesaler, coffee educator, shop, bus — a full coffee immersion, per their own billing — on West White Street in Rock Hill. It’s name is homage to Knowledge Park, a revitalized area of downtown where former mills and storage areas have become new business, apartments and gathering places.
The Knowledge Perk team recently announced they’ll add a second location, this time in Fort Mill.
“We’re opening a location in Fort Mill where the old Mr. Chang’s spot was,” said Patrick Baird, marketing and communications director with Knowledge Perk. “There’s never really been a lot of coffee in Fort Mill. It’s one of the bigger holes.”
The new Crossroads Plaza location, at Gold Hill Road and S.C. 160 West between Fort Mill and Tega Cay, is the first of what the company hopes will be multiple expansions in coming years.
“Fort Mill is just one step in the expansion that we really want to do,” Baird said.
The team hasn’t announced an opening date. It’s likely a matter of months. Keys are in hand and leases signed. Training and upfitting needed at the new space still will take time.
“We’re excited to venture into Fort Mill,” Baird said. “Knowledge Perk is not just a coffee shop. We have a lot of pieces moving.”
There won’t be changes at the existing Rock Hill location as part of the move. The company maintains deep roots in Rock Hill, as the name suggests.
“Fort Mill is just the step that we’ve been waiting to happen,” Baird said. “Rock Hill will always be our flagship location. Rock Hill was our only location, but now it’ll become our flagship.”
The company recently announced it’s done $1 million in business and developed plans for new product lines and two additional locations in the coming year.
“It’s both exciting and humbling to have closed this most recent round of investments in Knowledge Perk,” said Ryan Sanderson, company CEO. “To know that people see the value of what we are trying to create and want to help us in that journey is amazing. The capital we have raised and the partnerships we have formed will allow us to focus on significant future growth.”
The company focuses on sustainable, “green” coffee operations.
“Through our ethical sourcing operations and corporate partnerships, Knowledge Perk is acting on its mission of ‘Coffee Innovations’ by implementing systems and methods that have not been done previously in the coffee industry,” said COO Jordan Herring.
The company does significant business not just in the Fort Mill and Tega Cay areas, Baird said, but in the Charlotte market. The second location will run the same type of operation as the first. The company has some area experience. Knowledge Perk opened three years ago in Rock Hill, and after two years the customer questions become more common as to when they’d locate in Fort Mill.
The company bought a 1987 Ford bus and converted it into a coffee bus. It’s served the Masons Bend and other areas of Fort Mill.
“Mobile coffee is awesome, but it’s not a location,” Baird said. “We heard our customers, and we’re in the process of meeting needs for them.”
Apart from the coffee market in Fort Mill, Baird’s team sees the overall population growth there. Much of it fueled by successful businesses like, he hopes, the one Knowledge Perk will bring.
“We see Kingsley, we see Baxter,” Baird said. “We see these little subsets that are driven by small business.”
