Klatch Coffee
Big Things are Brewing as Heather and Holly Perry Grow Klatch Coffee
By Clay Fowler
As college students, Heather and Holly Perry were both equally certain of one thing: Their career plans did not include a stop at Klatch Coffee, the family business.
Heather graduated from Cal Poly Pomona in 2004, unwaveringly on course to become a lawyer.
Younger sister Holly transferred to CPP a few years later as a marketing student intent on starting her own business.
But 20 years later, Heather (‘04, international business and marketing) is the CEO of Klatch Coffee, overseeing one of the fastest growing brands in the coffee industry. Holly (’12, hospitality management) is the company’s director of retail, overseeing the regional chain’s growing number of cafes. The duo is sprouting their family business’ artisan roots into thriving branches that include wholesale, e-commerce and retail cafes.
Their parents Mike and Cindy Perry opened Klatch Coffee’s first cafe in Rancho Cucamonga in 1993, meant to be a temporary venture until their father “got a real job,” Heather recalls. The Perrys opened a second cafe in 1997 and began roasting beans on a small scale in their new San Dimas location.
Klatch has grown from 30 employees in 1997 to nearly 200 in 2024. Earlier this year, the company opened a 16,000 square foot roastery in Upland to expand its capacity to use the beans they meticulously source from partners around the world.
Growing the Family Business
As kids and through college, Heather and Holly worked for the family business in various capacities, never intending to transition to the roles they occupy now.
They both couldn’t be happier to be wrong.
“I never actually decided I was going to work in the coffee business,” Heather says.
“I just never went to law school.” Says Holly: “I always knew I wanted to do my own thing, own my own business, because that’s what my parents demonstrated to us. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I finally let that go because I was having so much fun working for my family business.”
Holly, who is overseeing Klatch’s expansion into Sprouts Farmer’s Markets — Sprouts will sell bags of Klatch coffee on grocery shelves and have Klatch cafes inside five of their stores by the end of 2024 — is living out her passion for the customer experience.
Her affinity for hospitality was born when her parents opened their first Klatch cafe in Rancho Cucamonga, giving their 5-year-old her first taste of the customer service experience.
Fast forward to her time as a college student at CPP’s The Restaurant at Kellogg Ranch (RKR). Holly had her full-circle moment when she managed the RKR’s front-of-house operations. “I love it when a customer comes in open minded and doesn’t know what they want. That’s when I get to help them find their perfect meal that they never would have ordered for themselves,” Holly says. “That’s what I love doing at Klatch. The RKR is where I discovered that’s for sure what I love to do.”
When she graduated from CPP, Heather’s coffee prowess combined with her business education put her on a trajectory to be the ideal CEO of a coffee company.
Heather applied her business acumen as she ascended from member to board member to president of the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA), which merged the U.S.-based organization with its counterpart in Europe during her tenure. Networking with coffee industry titans around the world through the SCA, trade shows and barista competitions allowed Heather to build Klatch into an internationally known company.
“Yes, there are stressful days, but I love what we get to do, love our team members, love the people we meet through our business,” says Heather, who won the 2003 and 2007 U.S. Barista Championships. “It’s a good thing I didn’t become a lawyer.”