'We're stoked': Ontario to have double the Dutch Bros

“We’re stoked to break ground on a second location in Ontario,” said Derrick Fleck, who owns Dutch Bros Snake River, in a news release from the City of Ontario announcing the expansion on Feb. 17.

“The Ontario community has been so good to us — we love serving up drinks for our neighbors and can’t wait to expand to our operations to serve even more of Ontario and it surrounding communities. The new location will offer convenience to our customers in that area,” Fleck, who owns the business with his wife, Danielle Fleck, said in an email. Currently, they employ more than 35 people and are planning to hire about 30 more for the new location, Fleck said.

Community Development Director Dan Cummings, when asked about the new location and its smaller footprint in the city in an email on Monday morning.

“The [l]ot is just a little smaller in size 18,809 Sq. ft. compared to 19,549 Sq. ft. but will function similar to the other site,” wrote Cummings, “It’s my thinking that this site will do well as there are a lot of citizens that prefers to not have to go to the east side of town and fight the traffic that is on that side of town.”

The store on East Lane isn’t going anywhere, and will continue to serve customers daily from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily, Fleck said.

“For such a small town we have a lot of coffee places and they seem to all have a unique niche of the population,” said City Manager Adam Brown in an email inquiring about the city’s role in the announcement for the business expansion.

“It’s not only our opportunity to promote additional development, of which this is a by-right development, but it’s our opportunity to promote the city’s brand which is that good things are happening here,: he said. “It’s also great to be able to share something positive after covering almost exclusively COVID related issues on our webpage for the last year.”

Griffin Hewitt and Leslie Thompson contributed to this story.