As AFROTECH previously reported, the basketball star launched Big Face Coffee in 2021, a venture that was a result of selling cups of coffee for $20 from his hotel room while in the NBA “Bubble” for the 2019–20 season during the pandemic.
According to the company website, the Miami Heat star has elevated the idea by presenting a variety of coffees. This includes Doublestar, featuring strawberry, floral honey, and stone fruit; Nebula, crafted with raw sugar, hibiscus, and apricot; and Earthshine, infused with chocolate, plums, and blood orange.
Butler is heavily involved with the company. In September 2023, he shared a video clip offering a glimpse into a trip he made with his team to Colombia to observe the cultivation of beans and to establish connections with the farmers.
“I am a big part of this. I don’t want anybody to think that I’m just handing this off to somebody else to do the work. I’m all for what you put into it, you’ll get out of it,” Butler told People magazine at the time. “People understand how much time and effort I put into coffee outside of basketball. It’ll help people understand how important this thing is.”
“BIGFACE will soon evolve from just a bean purveyor – and Van Leeuwen Ice Cream collaborator – to opening its first brick and mortar shop in Butler’s home of Miami this spring, and he speaks with passion about his vision for what the space could become,” The Guardian’s Claire de Lune wrote. “He says he wants it to have ‘something for everybody – all the different types of coffee, all the different ways coffee can be made.’ But more importantly, he imagines it becoming a space for community, somewhere people can gather. He pictures a space where he can be Jimmy Butler the person, not Jimmy Butler the NBA player.”
