Esquires Coffee will continue its focus on out-of-town suburban locations rather than city centres for its estate expansion.
The coffee chain, owned by New Zealand-based franchise operator Cooks Coffee Company, currently has more than 70 sites across the UK with a recent growth push seeing the opening of 17 new outlets. It previous unveiled a target of 80 UK stores by the end of its financial year in March 2025, with latest plans being to roughly double its locations over the next three years, and double that again within five years.
Esquires has now revealed it is pursuing further growth in regions including Southeast England and the East Midlands, while extending its reach into Wales. Last year, its total UK sales leapt by around a fifth to £17.5m with new stores accounting for 12% of this figure.
The brand said it was attempting to capitalise on the rise in remote and hybrid working through its suburban locations where consumers seek local options for coffee, food (including bakery), and social interactions. Many of its newest sites are in residential areas where coffee shops have become key community hubs – in fact, larger property developments often have the planning requirement of café as a social outlet.
Esquires aims to stand out from competition with a focus on a fresh, made-to-order food proposition, alongside a high-quality, organic coffee sourced through a long-standing partnership with one of the UK and Ireland’s leading suppliers, Matthew Algie.
“We’ve got the largest pipeline we’ve had to date in the UK, and we see that the brand has really strong potential to reach more communities,” commented Esquires CEO Aiden Keegan. “We’re not going high street, we’re not going flagship, you’ll never see us on Oxford Street. We don’t particularly want to be in central business districts or city centres.
“We’re happier in the suburbs where people working from home want to visit a cafe to work – we see a lot of people in our stores with earbuds on their laptops – or for a break, or to catch up with friends. This means we get bigger spend and longer dwell time than in more central locations,” Keegan added.
Entry costs for suburban stores are generally lower than in central business districts, noted parent company Cooks Coffee, which is looking to relocate its headquarters to the UK. It also highlighted that, unlike other major coffee chains, its franchise model allowed for single-store investment at a lower entry cost. This, it said, means a wider range of potential franchisees could realise their dream of owning a business.
The UK’s coffee boom appears to be still in full swing, with the British Coffee Association reporting that the nation drinks about 98 million cups of the drink every day while 80% of people who visit coffee shops do so at least once a week.
Earlier this month, The Nero Group continued its expansion by adding London-based coffee business FCB Coffee to its portfolio. This followed from last month’s news that Starbucks had acquired its franchisee 23.5 Degrees in a move that adds around 113 stores to its company-owned footprint in the UK.
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