NBA star Jimmy Butler is known for operating outside the norm. You may remember when he showed up at NBA media day with straightened hair and a sullen attitude, nicknamed Emo Jimmy.
“Yes, yes, laugh,” he told reporters. “I’m very emotional right now. This is my emo state and I like it. This is me.”
“I’m emo”
– Jimmy Butler
(By @ByTimReynolds ) pic.twitter.com/IrL9Nqqvyv
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) October 2, 2023
Given his penchant for acrobatics, people wondered whether his statement that he desired to be the “best barista” in 2020 was just one other joke delivered with a deadpan seriousness.
Turns out not. What began as a strategy to sell NBA stars playing in the Covid bubble $20 cups of coffee that he brewed in his hotel’s espresso machine turned into a real business. Bigface brand coffee. It began as an e-commerce game, and now Butler opened its first brick-and-mortar coffee shop in Miami last week.
The store offers the brand’s signature coffee blends and other merchandise resembling hoodies, T-shirts, hockey jerseys, coffee mugs and glasses.
Butler told CNBC this is the real deal – not a case of an athlete putting his name on a product to make an easy buck. “I want to be on every Zoom call, every meeting, every resupply trip, no matter where it is, anywhere in the world,” Butler explained. “Just because I want people to know, yes, my name is in it, it’s part of it, but I’m actually in it, I’m actually with it, I go to these places and I’m learning more and more every day.”
During the grand opening of the store in Miami, Butler told CBS News that it was a dream come true.
“I come here, relax, meet people, get pumped up and make friends,” Butler said. “Coffee is life. This is how I start my mornings – I watch my daughter play while I enjoy a cappuccino. For me, this is the essence of coffee.”