Meet Your Guest: Jimmy Butler

For paying subscribers: My Standart interview with NBA superstar and BIGFACE Coffee founder Jimmy Butler

Hi friends! During holiday weeks, I’m going to try to prioritize:

a) rest, and
b) giving something extra to paying subscribers.

So this week, I’m thrilled to share my interview with NBA superstar and BIGFACE Coffee founder Jimmy Butler.

It felt appropriate to release this interview the week after my colleague, Fionn Pooler, published a story about celebrity coffee brands. Fionn specifically cites Jimmy as someone who engages meaningfully with coffee and coffee culture (unlike many of the other celebrities he mentions). Plus, given that I am a rabid basketball fan, it was an honor and a privilege to spend some time with Jimmy.

For me, this interview was an exercise in combining two interests (coffee and basketball) and trying to find parallels between Jimmy’s approach to the game and his perspective on coffee—and we did find lots of similarities. It was also interesting to interview someone who has been covered extensively in the media. I put my best “Sean Evans from ‘Hot Ones’” hat on (Jimmy has previously appeared on “Hot Ones,” a show known for its really in-depth and specific questions) and tried to ask questions he hadn’t heard before.

This interview first appeared in the Winter 2023 edition of Standart, and photos were taken by Edwin Jean.

Jimmy Butler needs no introduction to sports fans, but to everyone else, he is one of the best basketball players in the world—a bona fide NBA superstar whose grit and win-at-all-costs mentality have helped to make the Miami Heat one of the most fearsome teams in the league. During the 2020 season, in which teams competed inside a quarantined hotel complex nicknamed “the bubble,” Jimmy discovered a passion for specialty coffee, making headlines by charging his teammates $20 for a cup of top-class joe. Off the back of this experience, he founded BIGFACE to bring some of the world’s best and rarest coffees to customers, along with a bold line of related merch. Standart caught up with Jimmy to talk courage, competition, and coffee.