Coffee Shops & Snack Bars NAICS 722515

Jan 14, 2026 - Rethinking Drip Coffee

• Specialty coffee shops are rethinking how they serve drip coffee, and the choices they make have direct implications for workflow, pricing, customer experience, and brand identity, Fresh Cup reports. High‑volume cafés rely on batch brewing to maintain speed and consistency while still showcasing craft through rotating single‑origin offerings. This approach keeps drip affordable and efficient, appealing to regulars who also buy whole beans. Other shops use pour‑overs to highlight variety and deepen customer engagement, adjusting methods by location, serving hand‑brewed to locals, and automated systems for tourist-heavy areas needing faster service. Destination cafés may build their entire experience around made‑to‑order brewing, using pour‑overs as a theatrical, intentional ritual that differentiates them from typical high‑volume shops. Across the industry, decisions about drip are shaping labor demands, menu strategy, and the overall atmosphere, becoming a key lever for how specialty cafés define their identity and compete.
• Starbucks’ decision to close roughly 400 stores in dense urban markets like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago signals a major shift in the competitive landscape for coffee shops, CNN reports. After decades of aggressive clustering, Starbucks now acknowledges that oversaturation and rising competition from smaller chains and independent cafés have eroded store performance. Starbucks’ retrenchment opens valuable real estate and customer share for rivals. Local specialty shops, already gaining traction in urban areas, stand to benefit from reduced Starbucks density and the brand fatigue that comes with oversaturation. Emerging chains, including Good Earth Coffeehouse, are moving into vacated locations, accelerating market diversification, according to CNN. For the broader industry, Starbucks’ pullback validates the strength of niche, craft‑oriented, and convenience‑driven competitors and underscores a shift toward more curated, differentiated coffee experiences, creating new opportunities for independents while forcing all players to sharpen their value propositions in increasingly crowded urban markets.

• Brazilian coffee farmers increasingly are shifting from arabica to robusta coffee beans due to climate change, rising temperatures, and volatile weather that make arabica harder and more expensive to grow, Fresh Cup reported in December. Brazil is the world’s largest arabica grower and while arabica continues to dominate, robusta production has increased by 81% over the past decade. In just the last growing season, robusta production jumped nearly 22% compared to the previous harvest. As robusta production expands, its quality is improving, creating opportunities for coffee shops to introduce new flavor profiles, lower‑cost blends, and innovative menu items. The shift from arabica to robusta likely means higher arabica prices and tighter supply, which could pressure margins for coffee shops relying on traditional specialty blends. Coffee shops may need to educate customers about robusta’s evolving reputation, moving beyond its historical association with lower‑grade coffee.
• Even though President Trump lifted the steep import tariff on Brazilian coffee in November, coffee prices are expected to remain high, creating ongoing cost pressure for coffee shops, Fresh Cup reports. While arabica and robusta futures briefly fell after the tariff cuts, underlying global factors, such as poor harvests, climate volatility, and supply chain instability, continue to keep prices elevated. That’s bad news for coffee shops, which can’t count on meaningful relief on bean costs in the near term. Persistently high wholesale prices will continue to squeeze margins, especially for shops that rely on specialty arabica. Consequently, shops may need to adjust menu pricing, reformulate blends, or introduce more cost‑stable options like robusta‑forward espresso. Unfortunately for coffee lovers, tariff removal offered only symbolic relief, while real-world costs for cafés remain stubbornly high.