Another day, another acquisition. FairWave specialty coffee collectivea Kansas City-based company backed by a private equity firm The great range capitalpurchased another senior Midwestern coffee brand. This time it’s Milwaukee Fiddleheads Coffee Roasters.
Posted by press releaseFiddleheads joins Milwaukee-based Anodyne Coffee under the FairWave umbrella, which it acquired in 2023. (After that acquisition, Fairwave questioned the validity of Anodyne’s unanimous vote to unionize, which has since dismissed by the National Labor Relations Board). After almost thirty years of family operation, Fiddleheads has grown to eight locations throughout the Milwaukee area, first opening in 1996. But things change and 30 years is like 100 years in coffee shops, so co-owners Mike Wróblewski and Ray Marcy began to consider life after Fiddleheads.
“Fiddleheads is the baby of our family,” Marcy says in a press release. “It was really significant to us that if we ever decided to sell, it would be to someone who worked in the café – someone who understood how special Fiddleheads is to us and how special it has become here for the local community.”
Fiddleheads becomes the 12th brand acquired by FairWave, which recently made a splash by acquiring North Carolina-based Black & White Coffee and previously acquired Baltimore-based Ceremony Coffee. They join other brands such as Spyhouse, Messenger Coffee, Hugo Tea and Up Coffee among those acquired by FairWavedly.
