Second Cup

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Second Cup Logo

Second Cup is a large Canadian-owned chain of cafés, the largest specialty coffee retailer in Canada. Founded in 1975 by Tom Culligan and Frank O'Dea, Culligan eventually purchased O'Dea's shares. After building it to a 150-store chain, he sold it in 1988 to Michael Bregman, the founder of Marvelous Muffins. Today, the company is owned by Cara Operations Limited. There are close to 500 Second Cup outlets (combination of corporate and franchise outlets) across Canada. Second Cup is similar to the much larger Starbucks.

Select Second Cup cafes are "internet hotspots", which means they offer wireless internet access allowing customers to surf the internet and check their e-mail over coffee.

In 2001, Rhéal Mathieu, a member of Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) who in 1967 was sentenced to 9 years in prison for terrorist activities including murder, was convicted of the firebombing of three Second Cup coffee shops in Montreal, Quebec. Mathieu targeted them because of the company's use of its incorporated English name "Second Cup". Mathieu was sentenced to one month in jail.

After the media coverage of the firebombings, Second Cups in Quebec changed their signs to "Les cafés Second Cup".

Second Cup has expanded tremendously since its inception. There are Second Cup franchises in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and one in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.