[3] The company operates 99 stores as of June 2021, with locations in California, New York, Washington, D.C., Boston, Chicago, Seoul, Jeju City,[4] Kyoto, Kobe, Tokyo, Osaka, Yokohama, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

[5] W. James Freeman founded Blue Bottle Coffee in the early 2000s in Oakland's Temescal District.

[6] Freeman borrowed the name from one of Europe's first cafés, The Blue Bottle Coffee House.

[7] Blue Bottle opened additional locations in San Francisco and elsewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area and opened its first New York location in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 2010.

[8] The company-owned stores carry off-menu items such as the "Gibraltar", a form of cortado.