James Freeman started with a single cart selling roasted beans at the Old Oakland Farmers Market. Blue Bottle's Northern California page listed 14 San Francisco cafés when checked in October 2026, the Ferry Building among them.
Three Africas blends two Ethiopian coffees with a Rwandan lot, and the single origins in the online shop that month included Costa Rica, Mexico, and Brazil. Nestlé bought the chain in 2017, and in April 2026 it announced an agreement to sell the cafés and most of the packaged coffee business to Centurium Capital, expected to close in the first half of 2026.