Luckin Coffee – NYC

Not yet available in Orange County – but founded by executives who left to create rival Cotti Coffee – China’s coffee and tea chain Luckin Coffee so rapidly expanded that it overtook Starbucks in Chinese locations, with an aim to do the same internationally. Since 2017, Luckin has opened or franchised over 26,000 global stores (versus Starbucks’ 39,000), a pace that coincided with an accounting scandal due to massive overstatements of the chain’s profitability; this comes as no surprise once you visit any New York City location and experience Luckin’s unusual business model.

The concept: Luckin only takes orders through an app that dispenses and auto-applies Temu-like streams of coupons while showing off the chain’s somewhat atypical food and drink offerings. As customers experience highly variable pricing, there’s no way to order from a human cashier – just one way Luckin keeps relatively few staffers focused on quickly preparing drinks. We expected our order would take 10 or 15 minutes to assemble, but it was instead ready in less than 5, partially because it was early in the morning and no other orders were competing for attention.

As it turns out, drinks were essentially pre-made; Luckin’s recipes enable employees to just pour and mix ingredients. While the menu touts “100% Arabica coffee” and “100% Japanese matcha” tea, it also includes mixes ranging from fruit-laden cold brews and coconut water-mixed matcha to lattes including caramel popcorn and coconut velvet, and refreshers where strawberry cold foam, mango juice, mango syrup, and coconut milk are mixed in a single cup.