WILMINGTON — A little more than a decade ago when brothers Ben and Michael Powell first opened Drift Coffee + Kitchen in Ocean Isle Beach, it was one store and two owners ensuring the culture of modern wellness was executed through coffee, food and connection.
READ MORE: Port City Small Bites: Drift expands to downtown, The Starling opens
While the idea remains in 2025, its growth has escalated, with 10 stores slated to be operational by fall 2025 and more than 300 employees helping facilitate operations. Porters Neck, Carolina Beach and Hampstead are the newest locations coming to the area by mid-summer, with a third Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill location opening in the RDU Research Triangle Park by October.
The Drift model is now made up of coffee shops and kitchens — consisting of smaller footprints — and cafes, which are larger spaces offering an expanded menu centered on healthy food. The Porters Neck store will be the largest cafe Drift has opened to date, according to Michael Powell. At 3,200 square feet, it will seat roughly 100 people and be open by June.
By mid-summer, the Hampstead store in Oyster Creek Landing will open. It won’t be a full-scale cafe, but a Drift Coffee + Kitchen, a hybrid model serving quick grab-and-goes to transient travelers. Located in a strip mall next to PT’s and Tinyz Tavern, it will be roughly 1,800 square feet and seat around 40 people indoors and outdoors.
“We felt like that market was ripe in that area,” Powell said, noting northern Wilmington into Pender County.
Metrics from Drift’s loyalty rewards members and engagement among employees and customers often dictate where Drift will go next. Powell said because so many customers during tourist season were coming from Raleigh, it helped inform their move to the Triangle.
“We also see a lot of people from the Charlotte region,” he said. “But three-and-a-half hours away feels a little too far to travel.”
The Powells own all the locations and so far in their company’s makeup don’t franchise, nor do they have investors.
“We really want to have control over our culture and maintain the customer experience, making sure all of our stores are unified,” he said.
The Powells have added upper management roles — including Craig Love as operations director, Thomas Mathers as culinary director and Sully Keele as coffee director — to help maintain the brand’s execution as Drift expands. Along with the Powells, managers vacillate on traveling to Raleigh at least twice a week to ensure acclimation to the coastal vibe is carried through at Drift stores located in state’s capital.
Surfers, the Powell brothers opened the first Drift in Brunswick County after traveling to Australia and seeing coffee shops there were more than just a place to grab java; they welcomed people to socialize and enjoy healthy meals before hitting the waves.
“It’s a holistic vibe,” Powell said. “People were active and engaging, not just hunched over a laptop or their phone. … It felt life-giving and we want to practice positive, authentic habits in how we consume — whether it’s through exercise, food, interactions — to promote a life best lived.”
2017 marked the brothers first venture into the Wilmington market with Autumn Hall, a coffee shop-cafe hybrid executed through counter service. This has been replicated in Mayfaire and downtown Wilmington, which opened near Bijou Plaza a few years ago.
In 2022, the brothers also launched their first full-scale cafe with tableside service in Wrightsville Beach. It has since been mimicked in midtown’s Hanover Center, as well as in Raleigh and Chapel Hill locations. It will be the model for the Porters Neck Center locale and Carolina Beach in the Proximity.
“That’s the thing about the cafes: We want to make sure people have time — because if if they don’t have time, no matter how good it is, they’re not gonna go and then we would have to change their habits and that can be hard,” Powell said.
The Proximity at Carolina Beach location also comes with built-in clientele, as apartments surround it and vacationers flock there with options to dine in nearby Riko’s pizza or grab ice cream at Boombalatti’s.
The cafe menus are the same among all Drift locations, featuring Benedicts, grain and egg bowls, avocado toasts and pancakes, as well as a lunch menu featuring salads and sandwiches. Drift’s coffee drinks also are served and the cafes offer a limited alcohol menu, including beer and mimosas.
The Hampstead coffee shop will feature all of Drift’s popular drinks and seasonal offerings, which right now include a salted honey pistachio latte and strawberry agave matcha. It doesn’t serve alcohol and has a scaled-down health menu of items from the cafes, such as breakfast sandwiches or veggie burritos.
Though there isn’t a drive-through, the operation’s quick customer service is executed by customers ordering through the Drift app and being able to pick up their items swiftly upon arrival.
“It’s a high traffic area and people are more on the way to work,” Powell noted of clientele there.
The intention wasn’t to open so many stores in a short timeframe, but Powell said it’s how the scheduling of everything fleshed out. Some of the new store contracts were signed two years ago, with expectations for completion being earlier in some cases, though ended up delayed — others finishing quicker than anticipated.
Powell acknowledged it’s a gamble to open locations in close proximity to one another — such as 1.4 miles between Autumn Hall and Mayfaire or 3.7 miles from Hanover Center to downtown. There are roughly 7.4 miles from the Hampstead coffee shop to the Porters Neck cafe.
“And we know it’s a risk to grow so quickly,” he added, “but we believe in what we’re doing and have passionate people helping us. If we weren’t busy, we wouldn’t be able to share Drift with more people.”
As of last summer, Powell said Drift was serving roughly 10,000 customers weekly. This is expected to increase as new stores come online and then there will likely be a pause on expansion.
“We’re focused on creating a pipeline of team members who want to lead stores and grow as young hospitality professionals,” Powell said.
The culinary group will host a career fair on April 9, noon to 2 p.m., at its Mayfaire location and will take open interviews.
Tips or comments? Email info@localdailymedia.com.
Want to read more from PCD? Subscribe now and then sign up for our newsletter, Wilmington Wire, and get the headlines delivered to your inbox every morning.
