Serving Up Coffee, From Dorm Rooms to Drive-Thrus

In the Whataburger test kitchen, Jacob Hurrell-Zitelman is known as the “Whatabarista,” the expert on all things coffee who is helping bring new flavors and trends to Whataburger’s coffee offerings.

For Jacob, it’s a journey that started brewing in his college dorm room. A business student and competitive swimmer at Trinity University, he saw a niche for cold brew coffee that was ready for college students to grab and go.

“We were literally brewing it in our dorm rooms for a while,” Jacob says. “But we quickly found out that wasn’t going to work. We didn’t realize how hard food manufacturing was.” 

The venture took off like a double shot to where Jacob and his now-wife Selena eventually had their own facility. They landed corporate accounts providing caffeine on the go to busy offices and even got the product onto grocery store shelves across Texas. 

Finding a Fit at Whataburger

But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, those offices sent workers home, and the fledgling company found itself struggling. Jacob hung up his entrepreneurial hat and came to work in the Whataburger finance department.

Turns out, the timing couldn’t have been better. Whataburger was looking to expand its coffee offerings – and discovered they had a secret weapon hiding among the Excel spreadsheets.

“Working in finance was an amazing opportunity to learn a new side of the food business, but my love for launching products stayed with me,” Jacob says. “When the product development team found me, it was just the perfect fit.”

His first task? Working with suppliers to find the right beans to pair with Whataburger’s iconic menu.

"People may not realize how much care we put into sourcing our coffee,” Jacob says. “We spent months tasting hundreds of different single-origin coffees and blends until we found the highest-quality coffee to supply over 1000 restaurants.”

Perfecting a New Flavor

With the perfect base established, Whataburger keeps the coffee fresh with limited-time flavors.

Hurrell says new flavors take months—sometimes over a year—to develop. It’s a collaborative process that involves the product development team, distribution, marketing, accounting, and more.

Sometimes the idea comes from traveling, searching far and wide for flavors that will fit Whataburger’s menu.

“We get flavor inspiration from everywhere,” Jacob says. “We travel to other places around the country, go taste other food, experience other cultures and say, how does this resonate with us?"

Then, Executive Chef James Sanchez works with the product development team and our suppliers to formulate the flavors.

New flavors may go through a dozen iterations before making it to customers in a test market. With the customers' input, there may be several more iterations before the flavor gets introduced to every restaurant.

“Because it doesn't matter what we think,” Jacob says. “It matters what our customers think.”