{"id":556306,"date":"2026-01-31T13:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T13:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/556306\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T13:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T13:00:13","slug":"starbucks-feels-the-heat-as-more-chains-compete-for-us-coffee-drinkers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/556306\/","title":{"rendered":"Starbucks feels the heat as more chains compete for US coffee drinkers"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK — Americans are drinking more coffee than they have in decades. But fewer of them are getting it from Starbucks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The company that revolutionized U.S. coffee culture remains America’s biggest player, with nearly 17,000 U.S. stores and plans to open hundreds more. But it’s facing unprecedented competition, which will make it harder to win back the customers it already lost.<\/p>\n

Starbucks\u2019 share of spending at all U.S. coffee shops fell in 2024 and 2025; it now stands at 48%, down from 52% in 2023, according to Technomic, a food industry consulting firm. Dunkin<\/a> ‘, a perennial rival that just opened its 10,000th U.S. store, gained market share in both of those years.<\/p>\n

Starbucks has other challengers, like the fast-growing drive-thru chains 7 Brew, Scooter\u2019s Coffee and Dutch Bros. Chinese chains like Luckin Coffee<\/a> and Mixue are opening U.S. stores. High-end coffee shop Blue Bottle, which has 78 U.S. stores, has opened two more since the start of the year. Even McDonald\u2019s and Taco Bell are bolstering their beverage offerings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople haven\u2019t fallen out of love with Starbucks, but they\u2019re now polyamorous in their coffee choices,\u201d said Chris Kayes, chair of the management department in the George Washington University School of Business. \u201cPeople are now experimenting with other coffees, and they\u2019re seeing what\u2019s out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Americans love coffee. In both 2024 and 2025, an estimated 66% of Americans reported drinking coffee every day, up 7% from 2020, according to the National Coffee Association, an industry trade group.<\/p>\n

Coffee chains are racing to cash in on that demand. The number of chain coffee stores in the U.S. jumped 19% to more than 34,500 over the last six years, according to Technomic, a consulting firm that researches the foodservice industry. <\/p>\n

Seattle-based Starbucks was a small, regional chain when former CEO Howard Schultz<\/a> acquired it in 1987. Now, other small chains are seeing explosive growth. Nebraska-based Scooter\u2019s Coffee had 200 locations in 2019; it now has more than 850. Arkansas-based 7 Brew, which had 14 locations in 2019, now has more than 600.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s too much supply relative to demand,\u201d said Neil Saunders, a managing director and retail analyst at consulting firm GlobalData Retail<\/p>\n

Saunders said Starbucks’ size<\/a> is somewhat of a disadvantage, since it has less ability to grow sales by opening new locations.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, they\u2019re pretty saturated,\u201d Saunders said. \u201cThey\u2019re a very mature business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starbucks is undaunted. At a conference for investors on Thursday, the company said an ongoing effort to improve service<\/a> while making stores warmer and more welcoming<\/a> was boosting U.S. store traffic. It plans to add 25,000 seats to its U.S. cafes<\/a> by this fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowth doesn\u2019t require us to become something new. It requires us to be exceptionally good at what we already are,\u201d Starbucks Chief Operating Officer Mike Grams said.<\/p>\n

Starbucks expects to open more than 575 new U.S. stores over the next three years. It developed a smaller-format store<\/a> that is cheaper to build but still has indoor seating, drive-thru lanes and mobile pickup. The company said the reduced scale would allow Starbucks stores to operate in locations<\/a> they couldn’t before.<\/p>\n

Starbucks is also adding new products, like updated pastries and snackable foods that are high in protein and fiber<\/a>, to try to win back customers. <\/p>\n

Lack of menu innovation is one reason Starbucks has struggled, especially among younger consumers who like novelty and will try new places to find it, Saunders said.<\/p>\n

Arizona-based Dutch Bros, for example, added protein coffee drinks in January 2024, nearly two years before Starbucks did. Energy drinks make up 25% of Dutch Bros’ business almost 14 years after the chain introduced them. Starbucks offered iced energy drinks for a limited time in 2024; executives said Thursday that customizable energy drinks would appear on the Starbucks menu soon. <\/p>\n

Dutch Bros, which is led by former Starbucks executive Christine Barone, has just over 1,000 shops in the U.S. and hopes to double that number by 2029. It’s betting that customers want speed and convenience; nearly all of its stores are drive-thrus with walk-up windows. <\/p>\n

Dutch Bros also focuses on value. In a recent meeting with investors, Barone pointed out that Dutch Bros\u2019 medium drinks are 24 ounces; at Starbucks, a medium drink is 16 ounces. <\/p>\n

Luckin, whose app brims with coupons and promotions, is also value-oriented. On a recent afternoon, one of its nine New York stores buzzed with customers picking up mobile orders. The tiny shop had no seating.<\/p>\n

Xunyi Xie, who was visiting New York from his home in Delaware, said he stopped by to try a Velvet Latte because Luckin had a $1.99 drink promotion. Xie said he normally brews his own espresso, but if Luckin opened a store that was on his way to work, he would go there.<\/p>\n

As for Starbucks? \u201cI think it’s overpriced,\u201d Xie said.<\/p>\n

In 2024, the average customer spent $9.34 at Starbucks, compared to $8.44 at Dutch Bros and $4.68 at Dunkin’, according to an analysis by the investment research company Morningstar. <\/p>\n

Starbucks didn’t raise prices in its 2025 fiscal year and has vowed to be judicious about future increases. But Ari Felhandler, an equity analyst with Morningstar, said it would be a mistake for Starbucks to try to win over customers with discounts because competitors will always go lower.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep your prices the same and try to justify them,\u201d Felhandler said. He thinks Starbucks’ store redesigns and new menu items will bring back traffic.<\/p>\n

Grams, Starbucks’ chief operating officer, said the company firmly believes its best way forward<\/a> is not drive-thru-only stores or mobile pickup kiosks. It’s building cafes with comfortable seating \u2014 the \u201csoul of Starbucks,\u201d as he put it \u2014 that also serve mobile, drive-thru and delivery customers. Customers sometimes want something convenient, and they sometimes want to dwell, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always going to be competition. We\u2019re aware of it, we keep an eye on it for sure, but we don\u2019t try to be them,” Grams told The Associated Press. “We offer something that most people don\u2019t, which is a legitimate space to sit down, enjoy and use it for a variety of different reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Kayes, of George Washington University, wonders if that strategy will be enough to keep Starbucks on top, or if customers who want a cozy or premium experience have already moved on to independent coffee shops or upscale chains like Blue Bottle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some ways, I think they are a victim of their own success,\u201d Kayes said. \u201cI do think that the aura of Starbucks as being something special and unique and exciting isn\u2019t there anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK — Americans are drinking more coffee than they have in decades. But fewer of them are…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":556307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[243478,347,64,57,1165,4631,9060,61,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-556306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-243478","tag-article","tag-business","tag-general-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-professional-services","tag-retail-and-wholesale","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115989841482969752","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}