About Kaldi’s Coffee
Founded in the St. Louis, Missouri area, Kaldi’s Coffee was built on a passion for exceptional coffee and genuine hospitality. Inspired by the specialty coffee movement, the brand set out to create welcoming spaces where customers could connect, build relationships, and enjoy a memorable coffee experience.
Over the years, Kaldi’s has expanded beyond its flagship café in Clayton, Missouri while remaining committed to the values that shaped the brand from the beginning. In 2023, Kaldi’s and Dancing Goats Coffee became sister companies, bringing together two respected coffee brands with deep roots in specialty coffee and a shared commitment to quality, community, and customer experience.
Today, both brands continue to focus on what has always mattered most: creating meaningful connections with customers through great coffee and genuine hospitality.
The Challenge
For Kaldi’s Coffee, loyalty has never been about transactions alone.
The brand’s café experience is built around recognition. Baristas know regular customers by name, remember their favorite orders, and create the kind of welcoming atmosphere that keeps guests coming back.
As customer interactions expanded across mobile ordering, online engagement, and in-store visits, the team wanted a way to carry that same feeling of recognition into every digital touchpoint.
Their previous loyalty platform offered rewards, but it did not fully support the personalized experience Kaldi’s wanted to create. The team was looking for a solution that would help customers feel valued and appreciated while strengthening the connection between in-store and digital experiences.
The goal was simple: create a loyalty program that felt like a natural extension of the hospitality customers already experienced inside the café.
The Solution
Kaldi’s selected Incentivio to help unify loyalty, mobile ordering, and customer engagement across its growing digital ecosystem.
Rather than treating digital and in-store experiences as separate channels, the team focused on creating a connected customer journey where each interaction reinforces the brand’s commitment to hospitality.
The loyalty program was designed to celebrate customers and encourage deeper engagement with the brand. Membership tiers provide both customers and baristas with greater visibility into loyalty status, creating new opportunities for personal recognition during in-store visits.
The team also introduced exclusive experiences tied to loyalty milestones. When the first 100 customers achieved GOAT status, Kaldi’s hosted a special event to celebrate them. The program has since expanded to include exclusive merchandise and other recognition opportunities that help customers feel connected to the brand beyond individual transactions.
Digital engagement plays an important role as well. The mobile app serves as an extension of the Kaldi’s experience, providing customers with a convenient way to order, engage with offers, and stay connected to the brand beyond the four walls. Messaging and promotions are carefully designed to feel welcomed and relevant, reinforcing the same sense of hospitality customers expect in-store.
The result is a loyalty experience that mirrors the warmth and recognition customers receive at the café, regardless of how they choose to engage with the brand.
A True Partnership Approach
With a lean team supporting multiple brands and locations, Kaldi’s needed more than just the right platform. They needed a partner that could help them get the most out of it.
Kaldi’s works closely with Incentivio’s Customer Success team through regular strategy sessions and ongoing collaboration. The team values the responsiveness, follow-through, and genuine investment in the brand’s success.
Rather than simply responding to support requests, Incentivio serves as an active partner, helping identify opportunities, solve challenges, and continuously improve the customer experience.
This collaborative approach has allowed Kaldi’s to move quickly, implement new ideas, and maximize the value of its loyalty and digital engagement programs.
The Results
Comparing the recent five months to the prior, Kaldi’s Coffee continued to strengthen customer engagement across both digital and in-store channels.
Key Results
- 25.7% increase in active loyalty members
- 31.2% increase in loyalty order net sales
- Nearly 10,000 new members added during the period
The growth in active members reflects Kaldi’s focus on creating meaningful customer experiences rather than simply rewarding transactions. By connecting digital engagement with in-store hospitality, the brand has created a loyalty program that encourages customers to participate, engage, and return more often.
For Kaldi’s, the success of the program isn’t measured solely by membership growth. It’s measured by the ability to strengthen customer relationships, recognize loyal guests, and extend the welcoming café experience beyond the four walls of the coffee shop
Looking Ahead
As Kaldi’s Coffee and Dancing Goats Coffee continue to grow, the team remains focused on creating meaningful customer relationships that extend beyond individual purchases.
By combining hospitality, loyalty, and digital engagement into a single connected experience, Kaldi’s is proving that technology can strengthen personal relationships rather than serve as a proxy for them.
The result is a loyalty program that does more than reward customers. It helps bring the warmth, recognition, and hospitality of the café experience into every interaction as well as strengthen the brand and drive business.