Name: Why Retail Brands Are Racing To Open In-Store Coffee Shops
Uploaded: 2026-01-25T16:24:45.000Z
Duration: 10 min 31 s
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It's beginning to feel like every brand suddenly has a cafe, from Louis Vuitton to Capital One.

And Coach thought he was buying me my dream purse.

Was anyone going to tell me that Aritzia has a cafe?

I'm at the Uniqlo store on Fifth Avenue in New York City.

It's one of their global flagship locations.

And at first you see jeans and shirts when you walk in the store.

But go to the second level and you'll see this, a coffee bar tucked away into the corner of the store.

We're trying to make more like a service floor where people can pick up their clothing, repair their clothing, customize their clothing, while also enjoying a great coffee or great matchup.

I've long said that the easiest way to get in the experience business is to add a cafe, because it engages all five senses and it gets customers to spend more time with you.

CNBC took a look at why retailers like Uniqlo are getting into the coffee business.

Companies adding branded cafes to their stores is becoming increasingly common, but

there were some early pioneers of the concept.

Barnes and Noble partnered with Starbucks starting in 1993 to introduce cafes in its bookstores.

Target also partnered with Starbucks starting in 1999.

Over a decade later, both Ralph Lauren and Capital One opened their first cafes in New York City and Boston, respectively.

One thing that we knew from the beginning would be important with cafes was that the environment was very welcoming and that people didn't feel like they were being sold to.

And so from the very beginning of the cafes and continuing today, we do not have a sales focus for the Capital One associates who work there.

Capital One told CNBC that it now operates 65 cafes nationally.

And and Ralph Lauren operates over 40 cafes across the world in cities like London, Barcelona, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Another early adopter was aritzia, with its Aok Cafe, which started in 2018 and has scaled to 13 locations.

These established players have found a concept that works and are continuing to grow.

But the past five years has seen a wave of newcomers.

Uniqlo, for example, opened its first cafe in Tokyo in 2021.

This New York City Uniqlo coffee is the first location in the United States.

But globally, the company has a total of nine coffee shop locations.

The reason to wait until 2025 was really to make sure that we are being recognized as a brand in this market.

We can continue to grow and add up new services and to continue to enhance that shopping experience to the US customers in 2024.

The brand, which has seen a cultural resurgence amongst Gen Z, saw a revenue increase of 22% in its most recently reported fiscal quarter.

Coach opened its first cafe in Indonesia to test the offering.

Since then it has opened four in the US and over a dozen more internationally.

The data that's been really, really fascinating is we're seeing double to triple digit increase in the retail store sales with having a coffee shop from the increased traffic.

The trend has become especially prevalent in the US amongst luxury brands over the past few years.

Fashion house LVMH opened a Dior Cafe in Dallas, a Louis Vuitton cafe in New York, and

remodeled its Tiffany brand's Blue Box Cafe.

Prada, which is not a part of lvmh, is also rumored to be opening a New York location in 2026 after opening cafes in London and Singapore.

For higher end brands, it also presents an opportunity for customers to make a purchase even if they wouldn't normally be able to afford to shop at the store.

Sure, a coffee may run you upwards of $9, but

that's more of an attainable luxury in stores where three or four digit price tags are the norm.

We've actually seen a lot of younger customers come in 13, 14 years old and we're seeing them be able to experience Coach with some of the money that they may have earned from allowance and be able to have a pumpkin Matcha or a chocolate ch chocolate chip cookie.

So we see it across all generations, but maybe using it for different ways and different reasons.

And even if you are already buying from Coach Sanders says that shoppers can afford a cup of coffee a lot more frequently than a handbag, but

there are of course additional costs associated with this type of venture.

Coffee itself has become an expensive product.

Volatile weather conditions for coffee growers and more recently sweeping US tariffs have sent prices soaring.

The companies we spoke to are taking different approaches on operating the actual cafes.

Uniqlo and Coach are adding cafes to existing store locations.

Capital One, on the other hand, says it's building locations with the cafes in mind as they take up more space than a typical bank branch.

The company then hands off operations to a third party.

Capital One actually doesn't operate the coffee and food and beverage sales and production in the cafes.

One of the reasons that branded cafe concepts have ramped up over the past few years is in response to post pandemic changes in the retail landscape.

So Covid had a huge effect because it really decimated the experience economy.

And yes, we can still buy any goods that are out there contactlessly.

And so what does it take to get people to go out to the stores?

You need to be able to have experiences that they value.

And cafes, again, are the primary way to be able to do that.

When retailers open coffee shops, it can increase their brand exposure, can also drive incremental foot traffic and keep shoppers inside their stores for longer.

Primary reason for having a Uniqlo coffee in our store is obviously to bring more customers to the store, but

also to have an inviting space, space for them when they come shopping.

The interest behind and the concept behind is to make you feel at home, to be part of the brand, to feel the brand, to also spread the Japanese culture.

Capital One's situation is a bit more unique.

So cafes offer a bit of a different opportunity.

The cafes are meant to be a showroom of Capital One.

Bank accounts and credit cards and money are things that don't always feel tangible.

And so the cafes can show, you know, can show up as a personification of what is Capital One.

But across all types of companies, cafes create an opportunity for revenue growth in a saturated retail environment.

If you design the cafe to be able to operate it at a profit, and

there's no reason, today's days and age where the people are paying for coffee, that you can't do that, and

It may get them to make an extra visit every month or every quarter or every year.

May get them to buy more because they slowed down and they looked at things.

When we open the Eniql coffee, there's one aspect that is making profits, which we are obviously monitoring week over week, month over month.

And then the second aspect is really about the customer.

And really the reason why we open this coffee is to really help our customer and enhance their shopping experience.

As more and more brands open their own cafes, the retail coffee concept will become increasingly commoditized.

It's something that you need to refresh to think about how you change this over time.

And you need to design it uniquely, right?

It's not enough like Barnes and Noble originally putting Starbucks in the stores.

The Tiffany Blue Box Cafe being a beautiful example of that.

So that it's not just about the coffee, it's about immersing you in the brand values and, and

One of Coach's best selling bags is called the tabby.

It's created a special cake at its cafes to compliment the product.

We're looking at changing the color of our tabby cakes, like, throughout the seasons.

We're also looking and working with our product development teams on what are some of the new icons or things that might be coming out as a brand and then how do we actually turn those into something that our customers can eat or drink.

I do think that brands look at each other and see what they're doing.

There is a little bit of a herd mentality going on regarding that, and

But I think also that everyone is doing it differently.

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Why Retail Brands Are Racing To Open In-Store Coffee Shops

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