Coffee Shop Industry Trends and Statistics in 2025

Key Takeaways

• The coffee shop industry is recovering: U.S. coffee chain sales are growing, and the number of coffee shops is exceeding pre-pandemic levels.

• Consumer preferences are shifting: Younger consumers favor independent cafes and innovative cold beverages, with plant-based options and concerns about tip fatigue emerging.

• Labor challenges persist: Staffing shortages and rising labor costs are forcing cafes to increase prices and prioritize employee retention through better pay and benefits.

• Technology is crucial: Online ordering, pre-ordering, and restaurant technology are essential for efficiency and customer satisfaction.

• Adaptability is key: Successful cafes are finding ways to balance technological advancements with a warm and personalized customer experience.

Coffee Shop Industry Trends and Statistics

Running a coffee shop is a busy job, but it’s a fun one, too. Juggling half a dozen tasks and chugging iced coffee are basically in the job description, along with managing and training a great team, staying up to date with the trends of coffee lovers, sourcing coffee beans from roasters across the global market, and keeping track of coffee shop costs and their impact on the bottom line. 

Coffee shops have adapted to post-pandemic challenges like inflation, supply chain issues, and rising operational costs. With 62% of Americans drinking coffee daily, many cafes are thriving by streamlining technology, offering subscription services, integrating loyalty programs, and focusing on employee retention through better wages and workplace culture. 

Balancing tech innovation with warm, human-centered coffee experiences remains crucial for sustained growth. We’ll get into the trends we saw from market research in the coffee industry this year and how cafes all over the country overcame the challenges that were thrown at them.

Coffee shop industry market analysis

Overall, the coffee shop and cafe industry is steadily recovering.

As of late 2024, U.S. coffee chain sales grew by 8% year-over-year, reaching a market size of $49.5 billion​. This growth rate and launches of new products have been driven primarily by large coffee brands such as Starbucks, Dunkin', and Dutch Bros, with Starbucks opening nearly 500 new stores in 2023 alone​. Additionally, the number of coffee shops in the U.S. has surpassed 40,000, which is 7% higher than pre-pandemic levels​.

Data for revenue in independent cafes is less consistently tracked, but their popularity with Millennials and Gen Z has helped keep many afloat. Over one-third of people aged 18-29 report having recently visited a coffee shop — while only one-quarter of older adults could say the same. Older Americans are much more likely to drink a cup of coffee from a drip maker at home, whereas younger people tend to try different coffee preparation methods. 

The coffee market in the U.S. as a whole is the largest in the world, bringing in an annual revenue of $88.5 billion. It’s easy to see how: the average American coffee consumption rate is less than 2 cups of coffee a day. With over 300 million Americans, that’s a lot of coffee! Though the most common location for coffee drinkers is at home, followed by the office, cafes — and the baristas who work there — play a huge role in keeping Americans caffeinated.

Coffee consumption varies by age. Nearly half of people between the ages of 18-24 drink coffee, and nearly 70% of seniors do, too — and they drink more of it.

There’s variety in what kinds of coffee people choose to drink, too: When surveyed in 2021, 67% of Americans reported drinking coffee in the past day, with another 26% saying they’d drank espresso-based coffee beverages instead, like macchiatos, straight espresso, cappuccinos, lattes, and americanos. Overall, 29% of all coffee sales are for traditional coffee — as opposed to specialty coffee drinks like blended iced coffees.

Coffee industry trends that have taken hold

Pre-ordering (and online ordering) is still popular

Though the practice was already somewhat popular in corporate chains and in the busiest downtowns across the U.S., pre-ordering has become more and more widespread, even at independent coffee shops. 

The adoption of online ordering technology in independent cafes is now table stakes, as customers are much more comfortable popping in and out to grab their drink, or even just taking it from a takeout window without going inside at all, as opposed to ordering at the coffee shop.

Customers quickly grew to love the convenience of ordering and paying for their coffee drinks (and maybe a little pastry) on their phones as they leave the house, and showing up to the cafe ready to grab their order and go — so online ordering has taken hold.

The labor shortage and the staffing crisis persist

Like every other sector in the hospitality industry, cafes continue to struggle with staffing shortages and high labor costs. It’s two sides of the same coin: The industry is struggling to hire staff, because thousands of cafe and other hospitality workers have left the industry, and aren’t willing to come back for the same low pay and no benefits that were the norm before — so coffee shops have experimented with increasing their pay and benefits, which leads to higher labor costs. 

However, making peace with higher labor costs is worth it, as happy, well-paid employees have much more incentive to stick around, lowering your turnover and improving the level of institutional knowledge at your business. Providing a better-than-ever compensation structure, as well as a supportive work culture, also helps attract the best staff to your coffee business and reduce employee turnover.

The main way that cafes have covered the cost of increasing pay — even with inventory costs skyrocketing because of inflation — is by raising their pricing. To that end:

Price increases are inevitable

Coffee shops, and other types of restaurants across the country, have had to increase their menu prices. Though many businesses hesitated to pass price increases onto the customer, for fear that it would scare away one-time visitors from becoming regulars, most have had no choice.

With everything from cardboard cup sleeves to oat milk costing much more than they did 10 years ago, it’s the only way that businesses have been able to stay solvent — and even grow — during this tumultuous time.

Coffee has an excellent markup, so increasing the price by even 10% can make a big difference in how profitable each beverage is. Especially for cafes that also do food service, taking a data-driven approach to price increases helps to ensure every item is as profitable as possible without driving away customers.

Plant-based alternatives are everywhere

Cow’s milk may still be most people’s go-to, but oat milk and other non-dairy milks like soy milk and almond milk, are coming for the throne.

Milk alternative formats have exploded in popularity in recent years. Requests for plant-based milk have become ubiquitous, whether it’s due to lactose intolerance, a preference to avoid dairy consumption, or veganism. And some coffee consumers just prefer the taste of non-dairy milk to cow’s milk.

Almond milk still has the highest sales, but they marginally dropped in the past year. To contrast, refrigerated oat milk, which is newer on the scene but massively popular, saw sales that grew between 55-58% in the past year alone. It’s now in second place, dethroning soy milk which previously had the second-place spot.

Starbucks now offers a widely beloved Shaken Oat Milk Latte, and independent cafes have started offering alternative milks in any of their beverages.

Tip fatigue is a myth

The concept of "tip fatigue" has emerged as consumers push back against rising tipping expectations, especially in quick-service and takeout scenarios. While tips surged during the pandemic to support frontline workers, current data shows a slight decline: average tips have dropped to 19.3% in full-service and 15.9% in quick-service restaurants​. 

This shift is attributed to inflation fatigue and the growing prevalence of tipping prompts in more places​. Although people still tip generously in certain settings, there's increasing resistance to higher tip demands in non-traditional contexts​.

Consumer trends continue to favor iced beverages

Though the coffee industry market analysis above shows that a large swath of the population always seems to favor simple brewing methods, coffee and tea trends continue to evolve — and particularly Millennials and Gen Z are loving trying out every new trend.

Some of the most popular coffee and tea trends in 2025 include: 

• Mega-caffeinated and smooth in flavor profiles, cold brew blends are steeped in cold water for 12-24 hours, and young people can’t get enough.

• Nitro cold brew coffee is pushed through a canister with nitrous oxide, which yields a delicious cup of cold coffee topped with an ultra-smooth, frothy foam head. It looks like a pint of Guinness.

• As used in Korean dalgona coffee and Greek frappés, instant coffee is continuing to be more popular and desirable than it was pre-pandemic. Coffee shops rarely, if ever, sell plain instant coffee — instead, they whip it with sugar to create frothy, creamy, sweet iced or hot coffee beverages. 

• Japanese matcha green tea is known for its grassy flavor, opaque bright green hue, and high caffeine content. It’s popular as is, as well as in matcha lattes and iced matchas.

• Iced coffee is continuing to gain ground against hot coffee beverages: last year, Starbucks announced that their cold beverage sales were outpacing their hot coffee sales.  

• Plant-based coffees with the growing interest in sustainability and plant-based diets for wellness, coffee shops are increasingly offering alternative milk options (like oat, almond, and macadamia) for lattes and other espresso-based drinks. Some cafes are also experimenting with plant-based coffee creamers to cater to dairy-free consumer preferences.

• Coffee cocktails are the line between coffee and alcohol continues to blur, coffee-based cocktails (like espresso martinis) are becoming a staple in trendy cafes and coffee bars. With the rise of "coffee culture," there’s growing experimentation in mixing high-quality coffee with unique spirits and liqueurs.

Cafes are investing in technology and automation

Cafes and restaurants of all kinds are continuing to use and invest in next-level technology for their businesses, from POS systems with coffee shop pre-ordering capabilities built in, to restaurant apps, to inventory solutions that help with recipe costing and controllable cost management, to contactless payment terminals and QR codes that let customers order coffee and meals from the table, right on their phone. 

Restaurant technology has come a long way, and cafes can benefit greatly from modernizing their front- and back-of-house operations and partnerships.

Coffee’s not going anywhere. How will you serve it in 2025?

Independent cafes, global chains, and everything in between continue to navigate the evolving challenges of a post-pandemic world. While the impacts of supply chain disruptions, rising costs, and changing consumer behaviors have persisted, coffee shop owners and staff have remained resilient, adapting to meet the needs of their loyal customers with great food and drinks every day.

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