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Lacing up for a run on an Oregon winter’s day is tough, even for the most devoted athletes. Nike wants to help by offering free hot coffee to cold runners from now through Jan. 19.
Nike chose the Slabtown location of Good Coffee, at 2175 NW Raleigh St., to be the only west coast location of this new program. The four other participating cafés are in Texas, Colorado, Minnesota and Pennsylvania, according to Nike.
“Our goal has been to connect with fantastic partners in places where running communities thrive,” says Chris Madaffari of Nike’s marketing department.
Nick Purvis, Good Coffee’s director of retail, says that the café has been hosting free coffee for a Nike-organized Friday morning run club for a few months. When that initial experiment was a success, the company reached out to Purvis to float the idea of the Nike Run campaign.
“They really wanted to run with this ‘take on the cold, run as much as you can, brave the elements,’ kind of vibe,” Purvis says.
Good Coffee is decked out with flyers, a Nike Run swoosh decal on the sidewalk outside and a stack of orangeish-red (it appears to be the color “vintage coral,” in Nike parlance) Nike Run cups ready to go for participants.
The fine print: visitors must prove to the barista that they went on a run that day by showing the route on a running app such as Nike or Strava. Wearing obviously sweaty workout clothes works, too. (“It’s basically the honor system,” Purvis says.) One coffee per runner, per day, and it’s not just drip: runners are welcome to any beverage on the menu, including seasonal lattes.
The “you run it, we pour it” campaign kicked off Dec. 2 and it was a slow first week. Last week, business “quadrupled,” Purvis says. (Also in the fine print: there are limited quantities of free Nike coffee per week.)
The promotion runs through Jan. 19.