Running a successful coffee shop in 2025 and beyond isn’t just about brewing great coffee — it’s about staying competitive in an increasingly crowded space.
Rising coffee bean prices, shifting consumer preferences, and evolving market trends mean shop owners have to be smart about where they invest their time and money. Due to supply concerns, coffee futures recently spiked over six percent, hitting a record high of $4.30 per pound.
With these challenges, prioritizing business strategies is key. Small and medium-sized coffee shop owners need to continue to implement strategies to improve their performance. By focusing on the right strategies, coffee shop owners can navigate industry shifts, build customer loyalty, and future-proof their businesses.
Here are 15 strategies for running your coffee shop to help you to remain competitive.
We've structured these strategies around three key objectives — securing the right resources, refining your business plan, and streamlining daily operations. This approach provides a clear roadmap for enhancing your coffee shop's business model and improving overall management.
Securing the right resources
1. Get in the habit of negotiating with suppliers
Negotiating with suppliers gives you the opportunity to improve your margin and ensure you get the best deals for your business. Research market prices, compare supplier rates, and stay on top of seasonal fluctuations in beans and ingredients costs.
Overall, the more you negotiate, the easier and more natural it becomes to integrate it into your business’s operations. It takes time and practice, but your business is worth it!
Another effective strategy? Buy non-perishable items in bulk to save on costs in the long term.
2. Renegotiate your rental agreement
As your lease term approaches renewal, consider leveraging market data to refine your rental agreement. Conduct a comparative market analysis to understand prevailing rental rates in your area, and use this information to initiate a data-driven conversation with your landlord.
If your location has experienced a shift in consumer foot traffic or broader economic shifts (such as retail contraction in your district), highlight these factors to negotiate more favorable terms.
Beyond simply lowering rent, explore opportunities for added value, such as:
Securing a longer lease at a lower monthly rate
Integrating utility costs into your agreement
Negotiating flexible payment structures
When presenting your case, be sure to frame it as a mutually beneficial discussion — offering stability for your landlord while optimizing your operational costs. A well-prepared negotiation with facts and long-term projections can increase your leverage and lead to a more favorable outcome.
3. Refrain from overcomplicating your menu
It could be tempting to add every new product to your coffee shop menu. However, it’s more likely your coffee shop will remain profitable if you focus on core products. That way, customers can avoid analysis paralysis or the lack of productive decision-making due to endless options. Research illustrates that having too many choices on a menu can create customer confusion.
When adding new products to your menu, consider whether your main customer demographic will be interested. To avoid having a menu with too many items, remove low-margin items when adding new food and drink.
Evaluate your inventory and past purchases to decipher the top products bringing in the most revenue. Consider also leveraging your social platforms to engage with customers and ask them what they love most at your shop.
4. Invest in quality equipment
Using quality equipment can improve the efficiency of your coffee shop. This efficiency can increase profits, expedite customer service, and improve customer satisfaction.
For example, investing in an espresso machine that saves you a minute with each use adds up to significant savings throughout the day. It can also alleviate your staff’s stress levels.
Finding that purchasing top-tier equipment isn’t feasible? No worries. Coffee shop owners can take a strategic approach to balancing efficiency and cost:
Prioritize high-impact equipment: Instead of upgrading everything at once, identify which equipment has the greatest impact on quality and efficiency. Invest in key items while maintaining or sourcing budget-friendly options for less critical tools.
Buy certified pre-owned or lease equipment: High-quality, refurbished machines from reputable suppliers can offer substantial savings without sacrificing performance. Leasing equipment is another option that allows for lower upfront costs and flexible upgrades. Consider reaching out to other coffee shop owners to see if they’re selling their retired but still usable equipment.
Use workflow efficiency to compensate: A well-organized bar layout, staff training, and workflow optimizations can often improve speed and consistency as much as a new machine. Investing in operational efficiency can maximize the potential of existing equipment.
Refining your business plan
5. Research your competition
Assess the competitive landscape regularly, both locally and nationally, to identify emerging opportunities to enhance your coffee shop's business model.
Look beyond businesses of similar size; larger chains often set industry standards and introduce innovations that can be adapted to fit your unique brand. Explore their approach to customer experience, product offerings, and operational efficiencies.
In addition, immerse yourself in the market by visiting other coffee shops. Pay attention to elements such as service quality, ambiance, pricing strategies, and customer engagement. Use these insights to refine your own offerings and ensure your coffee shop remains relevant and competitive. Sometimes, all it takes are small tweaks to make a big impact.
6. Focus on sustainability
Sourcing sustainable coffee isn’t just good for the planet — it’s a growing expectation among consumers. Data notes 43% of coffee consumers are influenced by “ethical, environmentally friendly, or socially responsible coffee options.”
These options may encompass:
Compostable cups and biodegradable utensils
Water-efficient practices
Environmentally friendly cleaning products
Milk alternatives
Coffee that is organic and from Fair Trade Certified producers
Participation in community environmental initiatives
7. Spruce up your shop’s atmosphere
Does your shop's current interior emulate your brand? Reevaluate your decor to determine whether there is anything that can be added to give your coffee shop a boost. This is also another great reason to visit surrounding coffee shops to assess what type of ambiance they offer and what your shop can do to fill in any gaps.
Rest assured, enhancing your coffee shop does not need to be expensive. A well-placed painting could work wonders. To build a sense of community, implement a technique used by boutique hotels. They commission work from local artists to create a buzz and show support for the community.
8. Enhance your marketing strategy
Regardless of your coffee business's size, leveraging digital marketing can do wonders. Marketing strategies such as local search engine optimization, social media engagement, and targeted email campaigns, can enhance your brand visibility and attract more customers.
9. Show appreciation to your regulars
With the increased competition in the coffee shop market, showing that you appreciate your regular customers is more important than ever. They could choose to go to any other coffee shop, so let them know you’re grateful they chose yours. It’s easier and more cost-effective to keep existing customers than to acquire new ones.
Implement a loyalty card program to reward customers with a free item after they have purchased a specified amount of coffee. You can also try something more informal, like giving them samples of new specials before anyone else. Small touches make your regular customers feel appreciated so they’ll keep returning and also introduce their friends to your coffee shop.
10. Familiarize yourself with your local community
Running a successful coffee shop does not only happen inside your establishment. The nature of a coffee shop makes it easier to integrate yourself into your community because it’s a place where people come to relax and socialize. Making connections in your neighborhood can create a strong sense of community.
You can partner up with local charities or community groups to show your business gives back to the community. Additionally, you can incorporate child-friendly spaces in your coffee shop to encourage parents and children to visit.
Streamlining daily operations
11. Analyze your inventory daily
How you manage your inventory will greatly affect your bottom line. Identify areas where food wastage is high and take steps to remedy this situation. For example, if a particular cake is not selling as well as the others, you can place it on promotion. If this fails, you should order a different type of cake to find out whether it will perform better. Your point of sale (POS) system should provide you with the analytics to inform you about your best-selling products.
12. Automate staff schedule
The coffee shop industry suffers from high staff turnover, and labor costs are a perennial concern for coffee shop owners. You can address both high staff turnover and labor cost concerns by streamlining the staff scheduling process.
You should make the most of staff management tools to ensure you’re fully covered during busy times and reduce the number of employees at quieter times. Deputy saves you time and money with auto-scheduling. You’re able to create schedules in one minute, analyze data about your labor costs, and ensure staff schedules abide by labor laws.
To learn more about the power of digital employee scheduling, check out our free ebook.
13. Train your staff in suggestive selling
Coffee shops are perfect for suggestive selling. Train staff to confidently recommend products, boosting both sales and profits. When utilized properly, suggestive selling can account for 10% to 30% of a company’s receipts.
Train your staff to ask customers whether they would like to add more to their orders at every opportunity. Use this technique to introduce new items at discounted prices to your customers. This can help foster customer satisfaction and loyalty.
14. Leverage technology to manage employees
Tracking daily to-do lists and assigning responsibilities are among the most repetitive and vital jobs at any coffee shop. With Deputy, you can use the Tasks feature to allocate different jobs to your staff. Your staff can let you know where and when the task has been done.
Everyone should be aware of what’s required each day to keep your coffee shop at an acceptable standard. Create a schedule for prepping, cleaning, and any other tasks that need to be done.
Carrying out jobs like labeling perishable items and discarding them after their expiry date is a requirement by law. Use Deputy’s task function to help you remain compliant with the law by ensuring that all legally required tasks are undertaken.
15. Optimize your hiring and onboarding processes
Speaking of staff, dive into your hiring and onboarding processes to find opportunities to refine them. Not everyone will be suited for a role or the shop culture. Moreover, onboarding plays a critical role in staff retention.
Areas to consider in hiring and onboarding operations include:
Prioritizing personality fit over coffee expertise
Leveraging a hands-on trial shift to assess skills prior to hiring
Speeding up the onboarding process by eliminating manual work
Check out additional insights on ways to encourage retention at shift-based workplaces.
Streamline daily coffee shop management and earn more sales
You can only manage your coffee shop effectively if you have an intuitive way of organizing your daily operations. Deputy is trusted by more than 350,000 businesses (including coffee shops) to schedule their staff easily and quickly.
Book a demo to see what Deputy can achieve for you. Meanwhile, see how New York-based Partners Coffee optimized their operations, saving $3,900 and 130 hours of admin work each year.
