Café Neo

Overview

Café Neo was founded in 2012 by Nigerian brothers Ngozi and Chijioke Dozie, who first invested in a distressed Rwandan coffee roastery through their $8M private fund and then realised Lagos itself had nowhere to sell to. The brand opened in a hidden mall second-floor space on Victoria Island getting roughly 10 customers a day, took a risk on a prime standalone location in 2014, and grew into Nigeria's first coffee-shop chain — peaking around 14 Lagos stores plus office locations.

Known for

• Lagos's first home-grown specialty coffee chain
• Founders Ngozi (CEO) and Chijioke Dozie — also founders of microlender Carbon
• Rwandan-roasted Arabica as the original house bean
• Designed as an entrepreneur-friendly workspace with reliable wifi and power, hackathons, and competitions
• Name 'Neo' means 'gift' in Tswana and 'new' in Latin

Why it matters

Café Neo created the playbook for African coffee-chain entrepreneurship outside Anglophone East Africa — a Nigerian-owned brand serving Nigerian-roasted Arabica in a country that grows coffee but barely drinks it.

Production

destoning

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head roaster

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color sorting

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roaster machine

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filter equipment

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cupping frequency

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roastery location

Roasting partnership with the founders' Rwandan operation

espresso equipment

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annual volume tonnes

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Café

Victoria Island flagship, Lagos

Sources

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9_Neo
• https://www.howwemadeitinafrica.com/two-brothers-started-lagos-first-coffee-shop-chain/57554/
• https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/18/africa/coffee-africa-cafe-neo/index.html
• https://cafespaces.wordpress.com/2017/05/22/growing-coffee-shop-culture-in-nigeria-cafe-neo-and-beyond/
• https://tracxn.com/d/companies/cafe-neo/