from JC Reindl of the Detroit Free Press,

There are two shots of espresso in a grande Carmel Marvel, the sugary and best-selling drink for East Lansing-based coffee house chain Biggby Coffee.

That isn't nearly enough caffeine for Biggby's co-CEO Mike McFall, who started as a barista at the business's first location in the mid-1990s, long before it grew to be a top regional competitor to coffee giants Starbucks, Dunkin' and Tim Hortons.

"I probably drink eight to 14 shots of espresso a day," McFall, 47, revealed in a rare sit-down interview last week inside a Farmington Hills Biggby, sipping his second four-shot Americano of the morning. "Caffeine impacts people differently, and I think it actually centers and grounds me as opposed to freaks me out.”...

As for his future, he says in the book that he is still working toward two lifetime goals: growing Biggby into a big nation brand, and owning the Detroit Red Wings.

The goals are intertwined, he wrote, because "I don't have a shot at owning the Red Wings unless we have a nationally dominant brand of coffee shops."

McFall, who played hockey and golf in high school, said he has seriously wanted to own the Red Wings for the past 20 years and thinks about it nearly every day, because for him, "the big goal is my beacon."

"When I cursed my alarm at 4:30 a.m. every Saturday, when I couldn't afford to go on trips with my buddies, when some godforsaken customers missed the toilet. I always knew the price I was paying and for what end," he wrote. "If I hadn't had the Red Wings in my head, eventually I would've forgotten why I was working as a glorified barista for 60 hours a week."

For his dream to come true, McFall would need to buy the NHL team from the family of Mike and Marion Ilitch, founders of another great Michigan-based franchise chain, Little Caesars Pizza.

McFall said he has yet to approach the Ilitches about selling.

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