Every figure on this page links to the organization that produced it, and each was re-checked against that source before publishing. How coffee shops and cafés use video, and the numbers behind the trade: our YouTube Data API read of the 381 most-viewed ‘coffee shop’ and ‘latte art’ videos and of a year of uploads from the U.S.-placed coffee shop channels among them; BLS and Census counts of coffee and snack bars and of the counter workers who include baristas, with their pay, in the U.S., Florida and Palm Beach, Broward and Martin counties, back to 1998; what coffee shops sell, from the 2022 Economic Census; BLS, USDA and International Coffee Organization figures on coffee prices, world supply and U.S. imports; what Starbucks, Dutch Bros, Black Rifle Coffee and Black Rock Coffee Bar told the SEC, and our count of annual reports that say “coffee shop”; government survey data and peer-reviewed studies on who drinks coffee and on coffee in social video; Florida licence, minimum wage and sales tax rules, the federal music exemption for small cafés, FTC and YouTube rules; and where the popular coffee numbers came from.
In our November 10, 2026 read of YouTube’s most-viewed ‘coffee shop’ and ‘latte art’ videos, coffee shops, cafés and chains drew 1.9% of the views of the 268 on-topic videos, and 22.1% together with baristas who state a business or title. Media and general creators drew 34.1% and home baristas and coffee educators 31.5%. (Mark Studios)See details
Videos of 60 seconds or less were 45.9% of the on-topic videos and drew 79.9% of their views. (Mark Studios)See details
33.7% of the videos YouTube returned for ‘coffee shop’ were café ambience or café-music videos, and only 47.2% of that list’s views went to videos about coffee or cafés. (Mark Studios)See details
BLS counted 87,158 private U.S. coffee shops and other snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars with paid employees in 2025, 67.1% more than in 2014. Census counted 85,140 in 2023, 136.1% more than the 36,062 of 1998. The code also covers juice, ice cream and doughnut shops. (BLS, Census)See details
Florida had 4,424 coffee and snack bars with paid employees in 2025: Palm Beach County 364, Broward 474 and Martin 41, or 23.1, 23.5 and 24.7 per 100,000 residents, against 25.5 for the U.S. (BLS, Census)See details
Prepared nonalcoholic drinks were 47.1% of 2022 sales at U.S. coffee and snack bars with paid employees; drinks sold through a drive-through were 22.0%, and 50.9% of these businesses reported drive-through drink sales. (Census)See details
U.S. employers had 3,854,050 fast food and counter workers, the occupation that includes baristas, in May 2025, at a median annual wage of $31,200; Florida had 235,400 at a median of $29,080. (BLS)See details
U.S. consumer prices for coffee bought in stores were 37.5% higher in 2025 than in 2019, and ground roast coffee averaged $9.332 a pound in September 2026, 108.0% more than in September 2020. The ICO green-coffee composite price set a record monthly average of 354.32 U.S. cents a pound in February 2025, above the 1977 high of 305.13. (BLS, ICO)See details
Starbucks had 10,047 company-operated and 6,813 licensed U.S. stores at the end of fiscal 2025. Dutch Bros had 1,136 shops at the end of 2025, says about 85% of its business goes through the drive-thru, and counted about 72% of 2025 transactions from its rewards app members. (Starbucks, Dutch Bros)See details
The “400 million cups a day” line appears, unsourced, on an espresso-equipment seller’s page archived in December 2004; a fair-trade group said 450 million in 2000. The “second most traded commodity after oil” line fails on PolitiFact’s 2015 figures: about $788 billion of oil exports against about $19 billion of coffee. (E-Importz, Global Exchange, PolitiFact)See details
Who makes the most-viewed coffee shop and latte art videos on YouTube?
Home baristas, latte-art teachers and media channels do, not coffee shops. In our November 10, 2026 read of YouTube's most-viewed 'coffee shop' and 'latte art' videos, coffee shops, cafes and chains speaking as a business drew 1.9% of the on-topic views, and baristas whose own text names a cafe, school or roastery they own, a workplace, a national or world title or paid classes drew 20.2%; together 22.1% (our calculation). Home baristas and coffee educators with no shop stated drew 31.5%, media, news and general creators 34.1%, roasters, coffee brands and equipment sellers 6.0% and food and lifestyle creators 3.1%. We took YouTube's 200 most-viewed results for each phrase through the YouTube Data API that day: 381 unique videos from 228 channels, with 3,098,864,730 lifetime views in all. 268 of those videos were about coffee or cafes, and the median one had 2,071,259 views (our calculation).
One channel leads. Mr.24, a Taiwanese latte-art tutorial channel, drew 21.5% of the on-topic views with 21 short tutorials, many of them 'Level 1 vs. Level 99' clips. Dritan Alsela, a barista who owns a cafe, a barista school and a roastery in Dusseldorf, drew 9.4%. The three most-viewed channels drew 40.7% and the ten most-viewed 65.5%. The single most-viewed video, a 16-second 'Amazing Latte Art' clip on a channel that names no maker, had 205,911,194 views (our calculation). The sample held 11 coffee shop, cafe and chain channels, 19 barista and coffee-professional channels, 36 home-barista and educator channels, 16 roaster, brand and equipment channels, 7 food and lifestyle channels and 42 media channels.
How much of YouTube's "coffee shop" results is background music?
A third of it. 33.7% of the videos YouTube returned for 'coffee shop' on November 10, 2026 were cafe ambience or cafe-music videos: rainy-cafe jazz streams, 'coffee shop' lofi radio, cafe-music playlists and DJ sets named for cafes. They drew 22.7% of that list's views; across both lists there were 67 such videos from 51 channels, with 13.8% of all views in the sample, and 59 of them ran an hour or longer (our calculation). The 'latte art' list held only 3 of them. We count these videos as their own group, not as coffee-shop video. Songs pull the 'coffee shop' list further from cafes: 16 videos were the 'I hopped into a coffee shop' song or its 'Coffee Shop Bop' trend, with 10.4% of all sample views, and other songs titled 'Coffee Shop', music by the DJ Black Coffee, coffee-shop games and kids' shows add more. Only 47.2% of the 'coffee shop' list's views went to videos about coffee or cafes (our calculation).
Instant quote
Get a price for your coffee shop videos
Mark Studios edits YouTube videos, Shorts and ads for businesses like yours anywhere, and films on site across Palm Beach, Broward and Martin counties in Florida. Answer a few questions and see your price, no sales call.
Yes. In the on-topic 'latte art' results, home baristas and coffee educators drew 46.0% of the views and baristas with a business or title 24.1%; coffee shops and chains drew 0.4%. In the on-topic 'coffee shop' results, media, news and general creators drew 72.3% and coffee shops, cafes and chains 3.8% (our calculation, November 10, 2026). Much of that media share is comedy: 34 on-topic videos were scripted comedy set in a coffee shop, most of them episodes of Pooja Tripathi's 'Brooklyn Coffee Shop' series, with 6.7% of on-topic views. Latte-art clip compilation channels drew 11.3%.
How long are the most-viewed coffee videos, and what are they about?
Mostly under a minute. 45.9% of the on-topic videos in our November 10, 2026 sample ran 60 seconds or less, and they drew 79.9% of the on-topic views. The median short one had 3,137,580 views (our calculation). 60.4% of on-topic titles named latte art or a pattern such as a heart, tulip, rosetta or swan, and 41.0% were framed as a tutorial, how-to, tips or mistakes video. 16 were barista POV, shift or workflow videos. 61.6% were published in 2024 or later. U.S.-placed coffee shops and baristas with a stated business drew 0.6% of the on-topic views; no channel in the sample named a Florida place. 8 videos are published as counts only (our calculation).
How often do U.S. coffee shops post on YouTube?
Rarely, apart from Starbucks. Only 3 channels in the sample belonged to a U.S. coffee shop, chain or coffee shop co-owner, so this is a short list, not a survey. Together they uploaded 67 videos in the year to November 10, 2026. Starbucks Coffee uploaded 51; its median upload had 15,516 views and its most-viewed 90,920,073, and 64.7% of its uploads ran 60 seconds or less. Umble Coffee Co uploaded 12, with a median of 2,100 views, and Chris Baca, co-owner of Cat & Cloud Coffee in Santa Cruz, uploaded 4. The median upload across the three had 5,518 views (our calculation).
Method: YouTube Data API, read November 10, 2026; the 'barista' search hit the API's daily search limit and is not in the sample. Channel classes were set by hand from each channel's own text. View counts are lifetime snapshots and include ad views. The data are in youtube-videos.csv, youtube-channels.csv and youtube-us-coffee-channels.csv.
How many Americans drink coffee, and where do they get it?
Most U.S. adults drink coffee. In National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data for 2003-2006, analysed by National Cancer Institute researchers, 75% of adults aged 20 and older reported drinking coffee and 49% drank it daily (Journal of Nutrition, Loftfield et al., 2016). Coffee drinkers averaged 14.1 fluid ounces a day (Journal of Nutrition). A later NHANES analysis of 14,865 adults for 2011-2016 found 59% had coffee in their dietary recalls, a narrower measure than "ever drinks coffee" (Nutrients, Rehm et al., 2020).
Most of that coffee is not bought in a café. In the same 2011-2016 data, about 74% of adult coffee drinkers got their coffee from stores, meaning grocery and other retail, and 9.8% from fast food restaurants, the NHANES source group that holds counter-service outlets (Nutrients, Rehm et al.). Two of that paper's authors work for Keurig Dr Pepper, a coffee seller, which the paper discloses. Coffee drinkers took in a mean 233 mg of caffeine a day (Nutrients).
Coffee is the biggest drink after water for older adults. In NHANES for August 2021-August 2023, coffee and tea made up 20.1% of the nonalcoholic beverages U.S. adults drank on a given day, by weight, second only to water, counted by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics from 4,790 adults aged 20 and older (NCHS Data Brief 568). The share rises with age, to 26.8% at 60 and older against 13.2% at ages 20-39 (NCHS), about 2.0 times as large (our calculation). Among youth aged 2-19 it was 3.9% (NCHS). NCHS found no significant trend in the coffee and tea share since 2013-2014.
What goes into the cup has changed more than the amount. A Tufts University analysis of 30,459 adults across eight NHANES cycles found coffee intake by weight held steady from 2003-2004 to 2017-2018, while the energy adults took in from coffee rose from 43 to 60 kcal a day (Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Pan et al., 2026), a rise of 39.5% (our calculation). In 2017-2018 adults drank a mean 1.67 eight-ounce cups a day, and non-dairy creamer added the most energy of any addition, 19 kcal a day (Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics). A Tufts cohort study that linked 46,222 NHANES adults from 1999-2018 to death records found the lower death risk seen with coffee was limited to black coffee (hazard ratio 0.86) and coffee low in added sugar and saturated fat (Journal of Nutrition, Zhou et al., 2025). The study is observational and shows an association, not a cause.
How much caffeine is too much, and how young does coffee drinking start?
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cites 400 milligrams of caffeine a day, about two to three 12-ounce cups of coffee, as an amount not generally associated with negative effects for most adults (FDA). It is a guidance level, not a survey result, and the FDA says sensitivity varies from person to person.
Coffee has taken a bigger part of young people's caffeine. In NHANES for 1999-2010, about 73% of U.S. children and adolescents consumed caffeine on a given day, and coffee's share of their caffeine intake rose from 10% in 1999-2000 to nearly 24% in 2009-2010 as soda's share fell (Pediatrics, Branum et al., NCHS, 2014), roughly a 2.4-fold rise (our calculation). Among Americans aged 13-29 in NHANES for 2003-2012, 85% consumed caffeine, and fewer than 7.1% drank energy drinks (Food and Chemical Toxicology, Tran et al., 2016).
What do studies of cafés, menus and baristas find?
Calorie labels on coffee shop menus change little in experiments. In a pre-registered UK laboratory study of 300 adults choosing from a hypothetical coffee-shop menu board, labels did not significantly change the calories selected (Appetite, Tapper et al., 2022). A 2026 randomised online study of 577 UK adults found the same for calories chosen, though labels made people better at estimating calories (Appetite, Ahmadyar et al.). Both measured stated choices, not purchases.
Provenance and setting can move what customers pay and feel. In a U.S. coffee shop field experiment with real-money bids, customers were willing to pay on average a $1.31 premium for a pour-over coffee from a cooperative member farmer (Food Research International, Ufer et al., 2019). In a 2026 experiment with 120 coffee shop consumers in Indonesia, stronger visual cues such as colour, lighting, decor and menu design did not automatically raise how customers rated the sensory brand experience; the effect depended on gender (F1000Research, Nosi et al.).
Behind the counter, noise dosimetry on 15 baristas in six independent Portland cafés measured shift-average levels of 71 to 83 dBA, below the regulatory criterion, though the baristas rarely used hearing protection for noisy tasks (International Journal of Audiology, Pursley & Saunders, 2016). In a 2023 Korean comparison, coffee brewed by a robot barista varied less in aroma compounds than coffee from a human barista (relative standard deviation up to 83.1% against 118.3%), and consumers' liking and purchase intent did not differ significantly (Food Research International, Park et al.). A 2022 survey of 300 customers of four robot-barista coffee shop brands in South Korea studied why they came back (Service Business). Lab tests of 120 coffees from six franchise coffee shops in Warsaw found the most caffeine per serving in iced latte or latte frappe, an average 136 mg (Molecules, Wierzejska et al., 2024). In an online survey of 474 people about Starbucks during COVID-19, perceived café food safety raised intention to revisit but did not change switching (IJERPH, Ji et al., 2023).
Coffee shops are studied as "third places", the community spots outside home and work. A 2025 study of U.S. Census tracts from 2010 to 2021 tracked coffee shops as one of 12 kinds of third place; coffee shops grew from 2010 to 2019 and then declined, and every category saw widespread closures from 2019 to 2021 (Health & Place, Sun et al.). Map listings show how the mix of venues shifts: in Qingdao, China, coffee shops' share of coffee-shop and teahouse listings rose from 49.3% in 2018 to 59.1% in 2024, up 9.8 percentage points (our calculation), while in Jinan total listings grew 64.6% with coffee's share almost unchanged (PLOS ONE, Li et al., 2026). A Journal of Marketing study of how craft and commercial coffee firms grow the market drew on 14 primary interviews with farmers, roasters, baristas and coffee shop owners, plus archives and fieldwork (Journal of Marketing, Dolbec et al., 2022).
What do studies of coffee on TikTok and YouTube find?
Coffee chains are among the biggest food brands on TikTok. A 2022 study of the TikTok accounts of 16 top food and drink brands counted 539 videos as at 30 June 2021, most posted in the first half of 2021 (BMJ Global Health, Brooks et al.). Starbucks, the only coffee chain in the set, had the most followers, 1.6 million, with 97 videos and 7.9 million cumulative likes (BMJ Global Health, Table 2). Its #SipIntoSummer branded hashtag challenge had 10.9 billion hashtag views (BMJ Global Health, Table 4). Across the brands studied, total views of the user videos made for a single challenge ranged from 12.7 million to 107.9 billion, and 96% of a sample of 626 such user videos showed branding (BMJ Global Health).
In influencer video, coffee is a steady minor share. In a 2026 study of 8,871 videos from the top 100 U.S. TikTok influencers, collected in July 2022, 78 of the 580 beverages featured were tea or coffee (Public Health Nutrition, Dupuis et al.); energy drinks and alcohol led. In a 2019 study of every 2017 YouTube upload by two UK influencers popular with children, tea and coffee made up 202 of 3,571 food and drink cues, and the authors note many drinks on screen were bought in coffee shops (Frontiers in Psychology, Coates et al.). In a 2024 online survey of 464 Canadian teenagers aged 13-17, Starbucks and Tim Hortons were two of the four food and drink brands teens felt targeted them most, with McDonald's and Coca-Cola, and Instagram was the platform they saw as most important for that marketing (Nutrients, Truman & Elliott).
How many baristas and counter workers are there in the United States?
Employers in the United States had 3.9 million (3,854,050) Fast Food and Counter Workers on their payrolls in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) survey (BLS). Baristas are counted in this occupation (SOC 35-3023) together with fast-food crew and counter attendants; since the 2018 occupation codes BLS publishes no separate barista count. The figure covers every industry and leaves out the self-employed.
BLS Employment Projections, which add self-employed workers, put Fast Food and Counter Workers, which includes baristas, at 3,855.9 thousand jobs in 2025 (BLS).
Is the barista job growing?
BLS projects employment of Fast Food and Counter Workers, which includes baristas, to grow 5.8% from 2025 to 2035 (BLS), faster than the 3.5% it projects for all occupations (BLS). It expects about 827.4 thousand openings a year in the occupation over the decade (BLS). Most of those openings come from replacing workers who leave the job, not from growth.
Where do baristas and counter workers work?
Restaurants and other eating places employed 83.0% of U.S. Fast Food and Counter Workers, which includes baristas, in May 2025 (our calculation): 3,197,640 of the 3,854,050 payroll jobs, per BLS OEWS (BLS). That industry group (NAICS 7225) holds coffee shops along with fast-food restaurants, full-service restaurants and cafeterias. Food and beverage retailers, the sector that holds grocery stores, employed 134,820 (BLS), or 3.5% (our calculation).
Fast Food and Counter Workers held 29.0% of the 11,040,380 payroll jobs in U.S. restaurants and other eating places (BLS) in May 2025 (our calculation). OEWS publishes its staffing pattern only at that level: the series for coffee shops and other snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars (NAICS 722515) does not exist, so OEWS cannot say how many people work behind coffee-shop counters alone.
How much do baristas earn?
The median annual wage of U.S. Fast Food and Counter Workers, which includes baristas, was $31,200 in May 2025, per BLS OEWS (BLS). The median hourly wage was $15.00 (BLS). Half of the occupation’s payroll workers earned more and half earned less. In restaurants and other eating places the median was $30,510 a year (BLS). OEWS wages are straight-time pay, which BLS defines to include tips, and they leave out self-employed café owners.
In Florida the median annual wage for the occupation in May 2025 was $29,080 (BLS), or $13.98 an hour (BLS). In the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metropolitan area it was, in May 2025, $29,600 (BLS), and in the Port St. Lucie metropolitan area, which holds Martin County, $29,130 (BLS).
How many baristas and counter workers work in Florida and South Florida?
Florida employers had 235,400 Fast Food and Counter Workers, which includes baristas, on their payrolls in May 2025, per BLS OEWS (BLS). The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metropolitan area, which covers Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, had 56,900 (BLS). The Port St. Lucie metropolitan area (Martin and St. Lucie counties) had 4,690 (BLS).
OEWS publishes no county estimates, so Palm Beach and Broward cannot be separated from Miami-Dade in this survey. The county counts of coffee shops below come from other BLS and Census series.
How many coffee shops are there in the United States?
The United States had 87,158 coffee shops and other snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars with paid employees in 2025, an annual average from the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) (BLS). No federal agency counts coffee shops on their own: the industry code they sit in, NAICS 722515, is shared with juice and smoothie bars, ice cream and frozen yogurt shops, doughnut shops and cookie and pretzel shops. QCEW counts private worksites that pay into state unemployment insurance, so a chain counts once per location. Those businesses employed 991,316 workers (BLS), 11.4 per location (our calculation), and paid them $25,036 a year on average (BLS); QCEW’s average pay counts part-time workers the same as full-time ones.
The Census Bureau’s counts for the same code are lower. County Business Patterns found 85,140 establishments with paid employees in 2023 (Census), and the 2022 Economic Census found 78,110 (Census). The agencies use different records: QCEW uses unemployment-insurance filings and a yearly average, the Census Bureau its Business Register.
How has the number of coffee shops changed since 1998?
The number of U.S. coffee shops and other snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars with paid employees rose 136.1% between 1998 and 2023, according to the Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns (our calculation). It counted 36,062 in 1998 (Census), the first year it used NAICS, when the industry was coded 722213. It counted 51,214 in 2008 (Census), 65,865 in 2018 (Census) and 85,140 in 2023. The code became 722515 in the 2012 NAICS with the same snack-and-beverage-bar content, and it was shared with juice, ice cream, doughnut and other snack bars throughout.
BLS QCEW shows the same rise. Its annual average was 52,153 in 2014 (BLS), the earliest year its open-data files serve, so the country had 67.1% more of these businesses in 2025 than in 2014 (our calculation). Their employment rose 76.8% (our calculation), from 560,703 workers in 2014 (BLS), and average annual pay rose 65.0% from $15,175 (BLS), before inflation (our calculation).
Year
U.S. coffee shops and other snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars with paid employees
How much do coffee shops sell, and how much of it is drinks?
U.S. coffee shops and other snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars with paid employees had sales of $62,769,408 thousand (about $62.8 billion) in 2022, according to the Economic Census (Census). That is about $804 thousand per establishment (our calculation).
Prepared nonalcoholic beverages made up 47.1% of those 2022 sales (our calculation, adding the five beverage lines the Census Bureau publishes). The largest single line in 2022 was drinks sold through a drive-through, at 22.0% of sales (Census); 50.9% of these businesses reported drive-through drink sales (Census). Drinks made at the counter for customers to have on the premises were 11.7% (Census), drinks for take-out, curbside pick-up and delivery 6.7% (Census), drinks with table service 6.6% (Census) and drinks from mobile vending 0.1% (Census).
Food sold through a drive-through added 9.3% (Census), so drive-through sales of food and drink together made up 31.3% of the industry’s sales (our calculation). The Census Bureau publishes no separate coffee line, and the shares include juice, ice cream and doughnut shops in the same code.
How many coffee shops have no employees?
Census Nonemployer Statistics, built from tax records, counted 22,060 coffee shops and other snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars with no paid employees in 2024 (Census) and 19,974 in 2023 (Census). Florida had 1,985 in 2024 (Census) and 1,672 in 2023 (Census). Most are sole proprietors; coffee carts and one-person stands that report their sales as a business land here.
Comparing the 2023 counts, the newest year both series cover, there were 0.23 businesses without staff for every one with a payroll in the United States (our calculation) and 0.36 in Florida (our calculation). Most coffee and snack bars run with paid staff.
How many coffee shops are there in Florida and in Palm Beach, Broward and Martin counties?
Florida had 4,424 coffee shops and other snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars with paid employees in 2025, per BLS QCEW (BLS). They employed 50,010 workers (BLS) at an average annual pay of $26,210 (BLS). The state had 2,356 such businesses in 2014 (BLS), so it gained 87.8% in eleven years (our calculation), a faster rise than the nation’s. County Business Patterns counted 4,582 in 2023 (Census) against 1,617 in 1998 (Census), a rise of 183.4% (our calculation), and the 2022 Economic Census counted 4,319 (Census).
Broward County had 474 in 2025 (BLS), employing 5,088 workers (BLS) at $26,375 average pay (BLS); it had 275 in 2014 (BLS), a rise of 72.4% (our calculation). Palm Beach County had 364 (BLS), employing 3,888 workers (BLS) at $26,423 (BLS); it had 222 in 2014 (BLS), a rise of 64.0% (our calculation). Martin County had 41 (BLS), employing 310 workers (BLS); it had 24 in 2014 (BLS), a rise of 70.8% (our calculation). Together the three counties held 19.9% of Florida’s coffee and snack bars with paid employees in 2025 (our calculation).
County Business Patterns for 2023 counted 504 in Broward (Census), 395 in Palm Beach (Census) and 47 in Martin (Census). All of these county counts use the shared code, so they include juice, ice cream, doughnut and other snack bars.
How many coffee shops are there per 100,000 people in South Florida?
Martin County had 24.7 coffee shops and other snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars with paid employees per 100,000 residents in 2025, the highest of the three counties (our calculation, from BLS QCEW counts and Census Bureau population estimates). Broward County had 23.5, Palm Beach County 23.1, Florida 18.9 and the United States 25.5 (our calculation).
Area
Residents, July 1, 2025 (Census)
Coffee and snack bars with employees, 2025 (BLS QCEW)
The rate counts only businesses with a payroll in the shared code, so juice, ice cream and doughnut shops are in it, and coffee counters inside grocery stores, bookstores and gas stations are not. A county with few locations can move a full point when one opens or closes.
How much have coffee and café prices risen since 2019?
U.S. consumer prices for coffee bought in stores were 37.5% higher in 2025 than in 2019, by the BLS Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) (our calculation). The coffee index averaged 193.237 in 2019 (BLS) and 265.658 in 2025 (BLS). From September 2025 to September 2026 it rose another 7.1% (BLS).
A pound of 100% ground roast coffee cost $9.332 on average in U.S. stores in September 2026, per BLS average price data (BLS), up 2.1% from a year earlier (BLS). In September 2020 it cost $4.487 (BLS), so the shelf price rose 108.0% in six years (our calculation).
Prices at counter-service places, the CPI item ‘limited service meals and snacks’ that includes coffee shops, were 37.8% higher in 2025 than in 2019 (our calculation), with the index going from 182.053 (BLS) to 250.785 (BLS). All food away from home rose 34.4% (our calculation), from 284.410 (BLS) to 382.378 (BLS). From September 2025 to September 2026, limited service meals and snacks rose 3.2% (BLS) and food away from home 3.5% (BLS). BLS publishes no CPI item for café drinks alone, and it did not collect October 2025 prices, so September is the latest month with a year-earlier comparison.
How high did green coffee prices go in 2024 and 2025?
To a record. The International Coffee Organization (ICO, intergovernmental) reports that its composite indicator price for green (unroasted) coffee averaged 354.32 U.S. cents a pound in February 2025 (ICO), the highest monthly average on its record, passing the 305.13 cents set in March 1977 in nominal terms (ICO). Over calendar 2024 the indicator averaged 229.34 cents (ICO), and ICO says it closed 2024 up 40% (ICO). In December 2025 it still averaged 304.68 cents (ICO).
Prices have eased since. The indicator averaged 262.18 cents in September 2026 (ICO), down 8.7% from August as Brazil's record crop reached the market (ICO), and 261.26 cents over the trading days of October 2026 (ICO). That October average is about 26.3% below the February 2025 record but still about 13.9% above the 2024 average (our calculation). The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) wrote in July 2026 that coffee prices had dropped 25 percent in the previous 7 months, measured by the ICO composite (USDA FAS). The ICO indicator is a wholesale benchmark for green coffee in U.S. cents a pound; it is not what a café pays for roasted beans or charges for a latte.
How much coffee does the world grow and drink?
More than ever, on USDA's forecast. FAS forecasts world coffee production at a record 189.7 million 60-kg bags in 2026/27 (USDA FAS) and world consumption at a record 179.7 million bags (USDA FAS), with world bean exports at a record 131.4 million bags (USDA FAS). Brazil's harvest is forecast at a record 71.9 million bags (USDA FAS); FAS says Brazil grows nearly 40 percent of the world's coffee (USDA FAS). Vietnam is forecast at a record 32.5 million bags (USDA FAS) and Colombia at 13.4 million (USDA FAS). Together the three are forecast to grow about 62.1% of the world's coffee in 2026/27 (our calculation).
ICO's own balance, on a coffee-year basis (October to September), puts 2025/26 world production at 183.6 million bags (ICO) and consumption at 180.6 million (ICO), a surplus of 3.0 million bags after four deficit years (ICO). ICO estimates world consumption fell 0.8% in 2025/26, including a fall in the United States (ICO); its North America figure fell to 28.5 million bags in 2025/26 (ICO). ICO estimates Robusta, the cheaper species used in many blends and instant coffee, made up 43.1% of world output in 2025/26 (ICO). USDA and ICO use different year definitions and sources, so their totals differ.
How much coffee does the United States import, and from where?
U.S. imports of unroasted (green) coffee beans were worth $10,305.4 million in 2025, according to USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS), which compiles U.S. Census Bureau trade data by calendar year (USDA ERS), up from $6,628.5 million in 2024 (USDA ERS) and $5,118.6 million in 2015 (USDA ERS). That is a rise of about 55.5% in one year and 101.3% in ten (our calculation). In 1999, the first year of the ERS series, the figure was $2,534 million (USDA ERS).
The tonnage barely moved. The United States imported 1,370.1 thousand metric tons of green beans in 2025 (USDA ERS), 1,346.8 thousand in 2024 (USDA ERS) and 1,461.3 thousand in 2015 (USDA ERS), about 6.2% less in 2025 than in 2015 (our calculation). So the rise in value is price, not volume: the average customs value worked out to about $3.41 a pound in 2025, against $2.23 in 2024 and $1.59 in 2015 (our calculation).
Colombia overtook Brazil as the largest source ERS lists in 2025: imports from Colombia rose about 87.5% and those from Brazil about 26.5% from 2024 (our calculation). The two together supplied about 49.7% of the value of U.S. green coffee imports in 2025, against 50.8% in 2024 (our calculation). ERS names only the leading countries and puts the rest, including Vietnam's mostly Robusta beans, under 'rest of world'.
Roasted and instant coffee is a smaller trade. ERS reports U.S. imports of roasted and instant coffee worth $2,318.7 million in 2025 (USDA ERS), led by Switzerland at $1,286.8 million (USDA ERS) and Canada at $478.7 million (USDA ERS), plus $1,393.1 million of coffee extracts and preparations (USDA ERS). With green beans, that is about $14,017.2 million of coffee imports in 2025 (our calculation).
On USDA's marketing-year balance, FAS forecasts U.S. green bean imports at 24,500 thousand 60-kg bags in 2026/27 (USDA FAS), total U.S. coffee imports in all forms at 26,900 thousand bags (USDA FAS) and U.S. consumption at 26,950 thousand bags (USDA FAS). FAS lowered its 2025/26 U.S. bean import estimate to 23.1 million bags on lower consumption (USDA FAS). FAS's 'consumption' is a supply balance, not a survey of coffee drinkers.
What tariffs applied to imported coffee?
Normally none, but 2025 added temporary duties. The U.S. International Trade Commission's Harmonized Tariff Schedule sets the general duty on unroasted coffee at Free (USITC). In 2025 extra duties sat on top: Executive Order 14323 of July 30, 2025 imposed an additional duty of 40 percent on certain articles of Brazil (Federal Register). Executive Order 14360, signed November 14, 2025, added unroasted coffee, subheading 0901.11.00 (Coffee, not roasted, not decaffeinated), and the other coffee lines to the goods exempt from the reciprocal tariff (Federal Register), for goods entered from November 13, 2025 (Federal Register). ICO's December 2025 report lists the rescinding of U.S. reciprocal tariffs on coffee, announced on 14 November 2025, and of a Brazil-specific tariff among the reasons prices fell that month (ICO). Executive Order 14389 of February 20, 2026 then ended the additional duties imposed under those two orders and several others (Federal Register).
How many Starbucks stores are there in the U.S., by its own filings?
Starbucks had 10,047 company-operated stores in the U.S. at September 28, 2025, the end of its fiscal 2025, after opening 509 and closing 620 during the year (Starbucks Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). It also had 6,813 licensed U.S. stores, the ones run by licensees in grocery stores, airports, campuses and similar sites (Starbucks Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). Together that is 16,860 U.S. stores, of which 59.6% were company-operated (our calculation). Worldwide Starbucks counted 40,990 stores (Starbucks Form 10-K, fiscal 2025), of which 21,514 were company-operated (Starbucks Form 10-K, fiscal 2025).
Starbucks U.S. stores, as stated in its Form 10-K filings
The fiscal 2025 count is after a cut. Starbucks closed 627 stores in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 under its “Back to Starbucks” restructuring plan (Starbucks Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). U.S. comparable store sales fell 2% that year, and comparable transactions fell 4% (Starbucks Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). Starbucks employed about 214,000 people in its U.S. company-operated stores at the end of fiscal 2025 (Starbucks Form 10-K, fiscal 2025).
The fiscal 2026 Form 10-K had not been filed by November 10, 2026. The company’s fiscal 2026 earnings release, filed with the SEC on October 29, 2026, now calls its stores coffeehouses. It counted 41,607 coffeehouses worldwide at September 27, 2026, 32% company-operated and 68% licensed (Starbucks earnings release, Q4 FY2026), and 16,781 in the U.S. (Starbucks earnings release, Q4 FY2026). In North America it had 10,902 company-operated coffeehouses and 7,274 licensed (Starbucks earnings release, Q4 FY2026). U.S. comparable coffeehouse sales rose 6.5% in fiscal 2026, with comparable transactions up 3.4% (Starbucks earnings release, Q4 FY2026), and consolidated net revenues rose 2% to $37.9 billion (Starbucks earnings release, Q4 FY2026).
How much does Starbucks spend on advertising, and what does it say about social media, video and AI?
Starbucks reported advertising expenses of $869.5 million in fiscal 2025, up from $597.3 million in fiscal 2024 (Starbucks Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). That is 253.9% more than the $245.7 million it reported for fiscal 2019 (Starbucks Form 10-K, fiscal 2019), in dollars not adjusted for inflation (our calculation). Even so, advertising was 2.3% of total net revenues of $37,184.4 million in fiscal 2025 (our calculation; revenues (Starbucks Form 10-K, fiscal 2025)). Company-operated stores brought in 83% of those revenues (Starbucks Form 10-K, fiscal 2025).
The fiscal 2025 report names video once, as a risk: damage from negative commentary “may be compounded by social media, video-sharing, and messaging platforms” that spread it quickly (Starbucks Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). It names AI as a capability it must build: the company says that if it does not strengthen marketing and data analytics, “including artificial intelligence and machine learning”, its sales and market share could decline (Starbucks Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). It also says it uses its investor relations website and its social media channels to disclose material information under Regulation Fair Disclosure (Starbucks Form 10-K, fiscal 2025).
How many people use the Starbucks Rewards app and Mobile Order and Pay?
Starbucks last reported its loyalty count for the first quarter of fiscal 2025: 34.6 million Starbucks Rewards members in the U.S. had been active in the previous 90 days (Starbucks earnings release, Q1 FY2025). At the end of fiscal 2024 the figure was 33.8 million (Starbucks earnings release, Q4 FY2024). The earnings releases for later quarters, through the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, do not report it. In fiscal 2019 the company counted 17.6 million active U.S. members (Starbucks earnings release, Q4 FY2019), and 15.3 million in fiscal 2018 (Starbucks earnings release, Q4 FY2018). From the end of fiscal 2019 to early fiscal 2025 the active count rose 96.6% (our calculation; the 2019 release did not state the 90-day definition). In March 2026 Starbucks relaunched the program with three membership levels: Green, Gold and Reserve (Starbucks earnings release, Q2 FY2026).
The newest share of orders placed ahead in the app that we found in a Starbucks SEC filing is from the fourth quarter of fiscal 2018, when Mobile Order and Pay was 14% of transactions at U.S. company-operated stores (Starbucks earnings release, Q4 FY2018). In October 2024 the new chief executive told investors the company needed to “refine mobile order and pay so it doesn’t overwhelm the café experience” (Starbucks prepared remarks, October 2024).
How big is Dutch Bros, and how does it market itself?
The app carries most of the trade. About 72% of all Dutch Bros transactions in 2025 came from Dutch Rewards members, up from about 68% in 2024 (Dutch Bros Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). Total advertising expense was $39,022 thousand in 2025 (Dutch Bros Form 10-K, fiscal 2025), or 2.4% of revenues (our calculation). The report does not name TikTok or Instagram. It says the company has worked with, and plans to keep working with, select social media influencers to promote its products, and lists influencer backlash as a risk (Dutch Bros Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). It also says social media has spread “secret menu” style drinks that Dutch Bros neither creates nor markets (Dutch Bros Form 10-K, fiscal 2025).
What does Black Rifle Coffee say about its coffee shops and its YouTube content?
BRC Inc., the owner of Black Rifle Coffee Company, operated 17 company-owned Outposts, its name for its coffee shops, and had 18 franchised locations across ten states at the end of 2025 (BRC Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). That is 35 in all (our calculation), against 36 at the end of 2023 (BRC Form 10-K, fiscal 2023). Outpost sales were $22.6 million in 2025 (BRC Form 10-K, fiscal 2025), 5.7% of net revenue of $398,263 thousand (our calculation; revenue (BRC Form 10-K, fiscal 2025)). Most of its sales are packaged coffee in stores and by subscription: its Coffee Club had about 159,900 active subscribers (BRC Form 10-K, fiscal 2025).
Video is central to how BRC sells. The company says its in-house content creation platform “represents a significant portion of our marketing” and that social media is a primary form of advertisement (BRC Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). It names Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X and Google as the platforms it relies on to win and engage customers (BRC Form 10-K, fiscal 2025), and warns that its content team often produces videos of risky activities such as stunts with firearms, skydiving and motorsports (BRC Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). Marketing and advertising expenses were $39,213 thousand in 2025, up 10% (BRC Form 10-K, fiscal 2025), or 9.8% of net revenue (our calculation).
Krispy Kreme sells coffee in its doughnut shops, but its fiscal 2025 report mentions coffee shops only as competitors, listing specialty coffee shops among them (Krispy Kreme Form 10-K, fiscal 2025).
How often do annual reports to the SEC mention coffee shops?
838 Form 10-K annual reports filed from 2001 to 2025 contained the phrase “coffee shop” or “coffee shops”, by our count with SEC EDGAR full-text search on November 10, 2026 (our calculation). With 2026 to November 10 the total is 868, from 224 different registrants (our calculation). The yearly count peaked at 52 filings in 2011, and the 2025 count was 42.3% lower (our calculation). Starbucks, which says “coffeehouse”, is not among the recent filers.
We read every one of the 96 Form 10-K filings that used the phrase from 2024 through November 10, 2026 and classed each registrant by hand. 20 came from companies that run or franchise coffee shops, such as Dutch Bros, BRC, Black Rock Coffee Bar and Reborn Coffee: 20.8% of the sample (our calculation). 18 came from restaurant, food and consumer companies naming coffee shops as competitors, among them McDonald’s, Yum! Brands, Keurig Dr Pepper and Krispy Kreme; 17 from suppliers and service providers selling through coffee shops, from a green coffee dealer to a robot maker; and 13 from grocers and casinos that run coffee shops inside their own premises (our calculation). The other 28 used the phrase in passing: a place to meet or work, an insider-trading policy example, a director biography or a landlord’s description of tenants (our calculation). The per-year counts with filer names, and the sampled filings with their classes and example passages, are in our counts CSV and contexts CSV.
What licence does a Florida coffee shop need?
A Florida coffee shop that serves drinks to stay or to go needs a public food service establishment licence from the Division of Hotels and Restaurants, under chapter 509 of the 2026 Florida Statutes. The statute defines such an establishment as any place where food is prepared, served or sold for immediate consumption on or near the premises or taken out by customers (Florida Legislature), and every one must obtain a license from the division (Florida Legislature). This section is statute and rule text as read on November 10, 2026. It is a plain summary, not legal or tax advice.
The licence must be issued prior to the commencement of operation (Florida Legislature), and operating without one is a misdemeanor of the second degree (Florida Legislature).
The division's fee schedule sets a basic fee plus fees based on seating capacity and services offered (Florida Legislature). The total yearly fee may not exceed $400 (Florida Legislature), plus an initial application fee of up to $50 for a new shop or a change of owner (Florida Legislature).
The division sets a risk-based inspection schedule of at least one and not more than four routine inspections a year (Florida Legislature).
Managers have 30 days after hiring to pass an approved food protection test (Florida Legislature). Other food service employees must be trained and certified within 60 days (Florida Legislature), and the certificate lasts 3 years (Florida Legislature).
Chapter 500, the food law run by the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, covers grocery stores, bakeries and food plants. Its definition of a food establishment leaves out any business regulated under chapter 509 (Florida Legislature), so a café licensed by the Division of Hotels and Restaurants is not also a chapter 500 food establishment. Which agency licenses a coffee counter inside a grocery store depends on the facts. The department's own pages were not read for this page.
What is the minimum wage for Florida baristas?
Florida's minimum wage reached $15.00 an hour on September 30, 2026, the last step of the schedule in Art. X, s. 24 of the Florida Constitution (Florida Senate). The schedule started at $10.00 on September 30, 2021 and rose by $1.00 each September 30 (Florida Senate). Voters put the schedule in the Constitution by initiative; the section's history note reads adopted 2020 (Florida Senate). The first minimum wage under the amendment was $6.15 (Florida Senate).
From September 30th of 2027, in the Constitution's words, the rate is to be adjusted each year for inflation using the CPI-W (Florida Senate).
For tipped staff, employers may count tips toward the minimum wage only up to the federal tip credit allowed in 2003 (Florida Senate). The Constitution does not print that credit in dollars.
In 2003 the federal minimum wage was $5.15 an hour (U.S. Code). The federal minimum cash wage for a tipped employee is $2.13 an hour (eCFR). Florida's frozen tip credit is the gap between those two figures.
The federal minimum wage itself is $7.25 an hour (U.S. Code). Under federal law a tipped employee is one who regularly receives more than $30 a month in tips (eCFR).
The Florida Department of Commerce publishes the tipped cash wage each year, but its site refused automated requests on November 10, 2026, so its notice was not read for this page. Barista wages paid in practice are in the workforce section.
Is coffee taxed in Florida?
Coffee sold as a grocery item is tax-exempt in Florida, and coffee served in a café is taxable at the 6 percent state rate plus any county surtax, under ss. 212.05 and 212.08 of the 2026 Florida Statutes (Florida Legislature). The statute's list of exempt food products names coffee, coffee substitutes, or cocoa (Florida Legislature), and the Department of Revenue's rule 12A-1.011 repeats it as Coffee and coffee substitutes (flrules.org). This is a plain reading of the text, not tax advice.
The exemption does not apply to:
food or drink served for consumption at tables, chairs, or counters or from glasses, dishes or other tableware (Florida Legislature);
hot prepared food products (Florida Legislature), meaning items prepared in a heated condition and sold at a temperature higher than the air temperature of the room (Florida Legislature);
food ordinarily sold for immediate consumption on the seller’s premises, even when it is packaged to go (Florida Legislature);
food served or sold by restaurants, lunch counters, cafeterias and other like places of business (Florida Legislature).
Rule 12A-1.011 uses coffee in two of its examples. A bakery with seating owes tax on toasted bagels, coffee and other drinks sold for consumption on the premises (flrules.org). And a grocery store owes no tax on free hot coffee poured for shoppers (flrules.org).
Can a coffee shop play music without a licence?
A U.S. coffee shop smaller than 3,750 gross square feet, not counting customer parking, may play the radio or a TV broadcast without a music performance licence, under the small-business exemption in 17 U.S.C. 110(5)(B) (U.S. Code). The exemption covers only transmissions from a broadcast station licensed as such by the Federal Communications Commission, or a cable or satellite carrier for TV (U.S. Code). It does not cover CDs, downloads, playlists or music streaming services, and it fails if the shop charges to listen or passes the transmission on. Text as read on November 10, 2026; not legal advice.
The Copyright Act defines a food service or drinking establishment as a restaurant, bar or similar place where people gather for the primary purpose of being served food or drink (U.S. Code). Other shops get a smaller limit of 2,000 gross square feet (U.S. Code).
A café of 3,750 square feet or more keeps the exemption for radio only with at most 6 loudspeakers, no more than 4 in any one room or adjoining outdoor space (U.S. Code).
For TV it may use at most 4 screens, one per room, none larger than 55 inches diagonal (U.S. Code).
The exemption was added by Public Law 105-298, the Fairness in Music Licensing Act of 1998, effective 90 days after Oct. 27, 1998 (U.S. Code).
The exemption is about playing music in the shop. Putting a song in a latte-art reel or a café tour is a separate use that it does not cover.
What rules cover a coffee shop's videos, reviews and influencers?
The FTC's Endorsement Guides, 16 CFR Part 255, in their current form date from July 26, 2023 (eCFR). They apply to a creator's paid café review, a sponsored drink launch and a free coffee given to an influencer alike. Text as read on November 10, 2026; not legal advice.
A connection between the endorser and the seller that viewers would not expect must be disclosed clearly and conspicuously (eCFR).
Payment includes free or discounted products, such as a free drink, whether or not a review is required in return (eCFR).
In a video, the disclosure should be in both the visual and audible portions (eCFR).
The Guides themselves use a coffee example: a radio DJ who says they enjoy making coffee with a particular coffee maker each morning implies regular use, and the ad is deceptive if they only used it in a demonstration (eCFR).
The FTC's Consumer Reviews and Testimonials rule, 16 CFR Part 465, took effect on October 21, 2024 (Federal Register). Unlike the Guides, it is a rule that carries civil penalties.
A business may not write, create, or sell a fake review or testimonial (eCFR).
It may not reward customers for reviews that express a particular sentiment, positive or negative (eCFR).
An officer or manager who posts a review of their own business must disclose the relationship clearly and conspicuously (eCFR).
No one may buy fake indicators of social media influence knowing they are fake, to misrepresent influence for a commercial purpose (eCFR). The rule's list of such indicators includes followers, subscribers, views, plays, likes, shares and comments (eCFR).
A knowing violation can cost up to $53,088 per violation (eCFR).
YouTube has its own disclosure step. Creators who feature a sponsorship or other paid relationship must tick the paid promotion box, which adds a label at the beginning of your video, in YouTube's words (YouTube Help).
Music is the common problem in latte-art clips and café tours. YouTube adds new tracks to its free Audio Library twice a month (YouTube Help), and says tracks downloaded from it won't be claimed through Content ID (YouTube Help). YouTube lists giving credit to a song's owner as a myth: credit alone does not grant the right to use the song (YouTube Help).
What do the popular coffee numbers really say?
Four numbers travel through coffee-shop business plans, equipment sellers’ pages and marketing guides: how many cups Americans drink a day, whether coffee is the most traded commodity after oil, how much video lifts conversions, and how many new coffee shops fail. We read each at the oldest source we could find and say below what that source measured. Pages that repeat a number are linked only as dated evidence of how it spread, never as a source for the number.
“Americans drink 400 million cups of coffee a day”
The earliest page we found with the line is a coffee-shop start-up seller’s, and it names no source for it. E-Importz, which sells espresso stands, equipment and coffee-shop start-up guides, said on its “Specialty Coffee” support page, as archived in December 2004, that Americans consume 400 million cups of coffee per day (E-Importz, archived). The same block counted over 100 million daily coffee drinkers (E-Importz, archived). Nearly ten years later, E-Importz’s statistics page, as archived in March 2014, still printed 400 million cups a day (E-Importz, archived).
An older wording was higher. In March 2000 Global Exchange, a fair-trade advocacy group, wrote that an average of 450 million cups of coffee are drunk in the U.S. every day (Global Exchange, archived), also without a source. The page E-Importz names at the top of its block, CoffeeResearch.org’s U.S. market page, gives no national total in any capture from 2001 to 2007; it gives an average of 3.1 cups a day among U.S. coffee drinkers, credited to the National Coffee Association (NCA, coffee trade group) (CoffeeResearch.org, archived). We did not read NCA’s own pages, because its website terms bar robots and data mining, so its newer cups-per-day estimates are not cited here.
The government measure is supply, not cups. USDA’s Economic Research Service reported in 2007 that U.S. per capita coffee availability peaked in 1946 at 46.4 gallons per person (USDA ERS) and was 24.2 gallons in 2005 (USDA ERS), about half of the mid-1940s level (USDA ERS). Use instead: “No primary source counts U.S. cups per day; the 400 million line goes back at least to a 2004 coffee-equipment seller’s page with no source. USDA counts availability: 24.2 gallons per person in 2005, down from 46.4 in 1946.”
“Coffee is the second most traded commodity after oil”
It is not, and it has not been for decades. The oldest form we found is a U.S. version: in March 2000 Global Exchange wrote that coffee is the U.S.’s second largest import after oil (Global Exchange, archived). By August 2003 its fair trade coffee FAQ said coffee is the world’s second most valuable traded commodity, behind only petroleum (Global Exchange, archived). A narrower version, about poor countries only, ran in the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Regional Review in 2002: coffee is the second-largest export earner for developing countries (Boston Fed). UNCTAD’s 2004 Commodity Atlas said raw coffee is the second largest commodity export after oil (UNCTAD) while putting annual coffee exports in the early 2000s at $10 to $12 billion (UNCTAD), a small fraction of the oil trade. Coffee-shop sellers passed it on: E-Importz’s “Coffee Facts” page, archived in September 2007, said coffee, as a world commodity, is second only to oil (E-Importz, archived).
The correction came from the man who had helped spread it. A September 2009 Smithsonian.com post called coffee the world’s “second-most valuable” commodity and added a footnote that, as a recent article by Mark Pendergrast points out, this may be erroneous (Smithsonian, archived). PolitiFact, a fact-checker, reported that Pendergrast, who printed the claim in his 1999 book Uncommon Grounds, wrote a correction in 2009 (PolitiFact). The line still reached Congress: on May 4, 2017, Starbucks’ written testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said coffee is the second most traded commodity after oil (Senate Foreign Relations Committee).
PolitiFact’s check of that testimony, which we cite as a pointer, reported a United Nations estimate of the oil export market at $788 billion in 2015 (PolitiFact) against about $19 billion for coffee, an estimate made with World Bank economist John Baffes (PolitiFact). Baffes told PolitiFact the ranking “used to be the case back in 1970” (PolitiFact), and that in a 2000 commodity report he co-authored coffee ranked 15th (PolitiFact). We could not check the 1970 ranking against a primary table.
Primary trade data for 2024, from UN Comtrade, show the gap country by country. The United States reported coffee imports (HS 0901) of $8,991,203,537 (UN Comtrade), against $174,423,623,898 of crude oil (UN Comtrade) and $219,496,094,240 of passenger cars (UN Comtrade), so coffee is not even the U.S.’s second largest import. Brazil, the largest coffee exporter, reported coffee exports of $11,373,030,987 (UN Comtrade), against $42,941,655,396 of soybeans (UN Comtrade) and $44,842,761,197 of crude oil (UN Comtrade). These are single reporting countries, not world totals. Use instead: “Coffee was once among developing countries’ largest exports; in 2024 U.S. coffee imports were $8,991,203,537 against $174,423,623,898 of crude oil (UN Comtrade).”
“Video lifts conversions 80%”
The figure is a best case from one video vendor, EyeView, about a client website, not a coffee shop. In February 2009 EyeView’s blog said viewers of its videos for one client, UMOO, were 80% more likely to become depositing users, comparing viewers with non-viewers (EyeView, archived), which does not test what adding a video does. By August 2010 Unbounce, a landing-page software seller, wrote that a study by eyeviewdigital.com showed video on landing pages can increase conversion by 80% (Unbounce, archived).
The larger later evidence points the other way. Unbounce’s own 2021 analysis of about 35,000 customer landing pages in each of three periods (Unbounce) concluded that video appears to have a minimal or negative impact on landing-page performance (Unbounce). Its April 2025 article of landing-page examples still says landing pages with video can increase conversions by 80% (Unbounce). We found no conversion test by a coffee shop or café, and no page applying the figure to coffee shops. Use instead: “Unbounce’s 2021 study of about 35,000 landing pages per period found video had a minimal or negative effect; we found no conversion test by a coffee shop.”
“60% of coffee shops fail in the first year”
No count of coffee-shop closures stands behind it. The first-year line is usually given with no source; the five-year version traces to an opinion survey. Bean & Brew Tech, an espresso equipment seller, says a widely cited survey of coffee shop owners found between 50% and 74% of independent coffee shops will fail in the first five years (Bean & Brew Tech). The same page says 56% of those owners agreed that more than half of all coffee shops will fail within five years (Bean & Brew Tech): that is what owners guessed, not what happened. The survey’s publisher, Food Truck Empire, bars AI agents in its robots file, so we did not read it.
The “60%” most likely comes from restaurant research. Parsa and colleagues, in the Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly in 2005, counted Columbus, Ohio, restaurant permits from 1996 to 1999: 26.16% of restaurants changed ownership or closed in their first year (Parsa et al., Exhibit 1) and 59.74% within three years (Parsa et al., Exhibit 1), counting a sale as a failure.
Government data measure survival by location every year. In the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Business Employment Dynamics, 85.3% of U.S. accommodation and food services establishments opened in the year to March 2025 were still operating in March 2026 (BLS, archived); 56.3% of the March 2021 cohort were open five years later (BLS, archived), and 42.9% of the March 2016 cohort after ten years (BLS, archived). First-year survival was 79.9% for the 1994 cohort too (BLS, archived). BLS publishes no coffee-shop series: coffee shops sit in NAICS 722515 (Snack and Nonalcoholic Beverage Bars, shared with juice bars, ice cream, doughnut and other snack shops) inside sector 72, and it counts locations, including new branches of chains. Use instead: “About 85.3% of new U.S. food service and lodging establishments survive their first year and 56.3% survive five (BLS); no dataset counts coffee-shop closures on their own.”
We started from the questions people search for about coffee shop video statistics and looked for the organization that actually produced each answer. Every figure on this page sits in an evidence ledger with its source, the exact table or paragraph it came from, the measurement period, the population measured, and the date we checked it. This edition holds 450 figures from 48 publishers.
On November 10, 2026, each sourced figure on this page was re-fetched with the fetch cache cleared and matched against the recorded wording: BLS occupation wage estimates (through the BLS data API), the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (its open data files), and Employment Projections, consumer price and average price tables and Business Employment Dynamics (through Internet Archive copies, because bls.gov refuses automated requests; its robots file names no AI agent); Census County Business Patterns, Nonemployer Statistics, the 2022 Economic Census and population estimates (through the Census data API and data files); USDA Economic Research Service data files and the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service coffee circular; International Coffee Organization market reports; the U.S. tariff schedule; the Federal Register, eCFR and GovInfo; the Florida Statutes, the Florida Constitution and the Florida Administrative Code; UN Comtrade; YouTube Help pages; SEC filings on EDGAR; a CDC data brief (through an Internet Archive copy); and journal abstracts and full texts (PubMed and PMC records re-read through NCBI’s E-utilities, because the pages answer scripts with a bot check). Our YouTube figures come from the YouTube Data API and our filing counts from EDGAR full-text search. We left out sources whose terms or robots rules bar automated access or AI agents: the National Coffee Association and the Specialty Coffee Association (their terms bar robots and automated scripts), a food-truck business site and several news sites. The Florida Department of Commerce’s minimum wage notice refused every automated request, so the tipped wage is given from the Constitution and federal law. Nothing here is tax, legal, food-safety or business advice.
We only cite the producer: government agencies, regulators, company filings and official posts, and the survey owner's own report. We do not cite statistics roundups, Statista-style aggregators, or salary sites without a public method. We did not bypass paywalls or sign-up forms; where a full report was gated, we used only the figures its publisher states publicly.
Figures marked "our calculation" are arithmetic on the cited numbers, and anyone can reproduce them:
This edition contains no Mark Studios customer data.
Limitations
The federal code is shared. BLS and Census count coffee shops in NAICS 722515, Snack and Nonalcoholic Beverage Bars, together with juice and smoothie bars, ice cream and frozen yogurt shops, doughnut shops and other snack bars; there is no coffee-only count. Coffee counters inside grocery stores, bookstores and other businesses are counted with those businesses. Baristas are counted in Fast Food and Counter Workers (SOC 35-3023) with cashiers and counter staff at fast-food places, and OEWS publishes no staffing pattern for 722515 alone.
Different counts, different counters. QCEW, County Business Patterns and the Economic Census count coffee and snack bars differently (87,158 in 2025, 85,140 in 2023 and 78,110 in 2022), so compare a count only with the same series. Our long-run comparison uses County Business Patterns for 1998 (then NAICS 722213) and 2023; the QCEW comparison starts in 2014.
Small areas move fast. Martin County has a few dozen coffee and snack bars, so one opening or closing moves its rate per 100,000 residents. OEWS publishes no county wages.
Prices are national averages. CPI and BLS average prices are U.S. city averages for coffee bought in stores and for broad groups of meals away from home; they are not what any café charges. There is no CPI series for a cup of coffee bought at a coffee shop. October 2025 CPI prices were not collected during the federal shutdown, so the newest 12-month change runs to September 2026. Import values are customs values, not what roasters or cafés pay.
Our YouTube read follows YouTube’s ranking. The 381 videos are what YouTube’s search returned for two phrases (the top 200 results of each, sorted by views, with no country filter) on November 10, 2026. A third phrase, ‘barista’, could not be searched that day because the API’s daily search limit was reached. It is not a census of coffee video, and a global view-sorted search does not surface local cafés. View counts are lifetime snapshots and include paid views. We read titles and channel text, not the videos themselves. Personal uploads and channels featuring children are published only as a class and counts.
Filings count words. EDGAR full-text search finds a phrase, not a topic. Starbucks calls its stores “coffeehouses” in its filings, so it is not in our “coffee shop” count. We read every hit from 2024 to November 10, 2026 by hand.
Studies are small or narrow. The coffee-intake figures come from national NHANES samples of different years; several café studies are single experiments or surveys outside the U.S., each labelled with its year, place and sample. Rules are reported as we read them on November 10, 2026; this is not legal or tax advice. Every “earliest we found” in the origins section rests on web pages, journal databases and the Internet Archive; newspaper databases were not searched.
How to cite this page
For a single figure, cite the original publisher named next to it, and link here if the verification trail is useful to your readers. Each figure has its own anchor, so you can link straight to it, for example https://www.markstudios.com/research/coffee-shop-video-statistics#WRK-019. To cite the page as a whole:
Mark Studios. "Coffee Shop Video Statistics." Last verified Nov 10, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/coffee-shop-video-statistics
APA
Mark Studios. (2026, November 10). Coffee shop video statistics. https://www.markstudios.com/research/coffee-shop-video-statistics
MLA
“Coffee Shop Video Statistics.” Mark Studios, 10 Nov. 2026, www.markstudios.com/research/coffee-shop-video-statistics.
Chicago
Mark Studios. “Coffee Shop Video Statistics.” Last modified November 10, 2026. https://www.markstudios.com/research/coffee-shop-video-statistics.
BibTeX
@misc{markstudios_coffee_shop_video_statistics_2026,
author = {{Mark Studios}},
title = {{Coffee Shop Video Statistics}},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
url = {https://www.markstudios.com/research/coffee-shop-video-statistics},
note = {Last verified 2026-11-10}
}
Our calculations and the evidence table are free to reuse with attribution and a link to this page. Each underlying figure remains the claim of its original publisher, and some publishers ask for a link when their figures are reused.
U.S. Code (Office of the Law Revision Counsel), via GovInfo (U.S. Government Publishing Office), 17 U.S.C. 101 Definitions (2023 edition) (2024). Accessed 2026-11-10.
E-Importz.com (seller of espresso stands, equipment and coffee-shop start-up guides; repeater), Coffee Statistics (2014 (capture 2014-03-15)). Accessed 2026-11-10.
Global Exchange (fair-trade advocacy group; repeater), Coffee Trade Background Information (2000 (capture 2000-03-04)). Accessed 2026-11-10.
CoffeeResearch.org (coffee information website; citing the National Coffee Association), USA Coffee Market (2004 (capture 2004-09-08)). Accessed 2026-11-10.
We re-verify every figure quarterly and when a major source publishes a new edition. The next scheduled review is February 2027. Corrections go to contact@markstudios.com.
Nov 10, 2026: First published with 450 figures from 48 publishers, each checked against its original source.
Frequently asked questions
How many coffee shops are there in the United States?
BLS counted an annual average of 87,158 private coffee shops and other snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars with paid employees (NAICS 722515) in 2025; the code also covers juice, ice cream and doughnut shops. Census County Business Patterns counted 85,140 in 2023 and the 2022 Economic Census 78,110. Census also counted 22,060 such businesses with no paid employees in 2024.
Is the number of coffee shops growing?
Yes. County Business Patterns counted 36,062 U.S. snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars with paid employees in 1998 and 85,140 in 2023, a rise of 136.1%. BLS counts rose 67.1% between 2014 and 2025.
How much do baristas earn?
BLS counts baristas in Fast Food and Counter Workers (SOC 35-3023). Its median annual wage was $31,200 in May 2025 in the U.S., $29,080 in Florida, $29,600 in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area and $29,130 in the Port St. Lucie area. Average annual pay at U.S. coffee and snack bars was $25,036 in 2025, a figure that includes part-time workers.
How many coffee shops are in Palm Beach, Broward and Martin counties?
BLS counted 364 coffee shops and other snack and nonalcoholic beverage bars with paid employees in Palm Beach County, 474 in Broward and 41 in Martin in 2025, 19.9% of Florida’s 4,424.
What do coffee shops sell most?
In the 2022 Economic Census, prepared nonalcoholic drinks were 47.1% of sales at U.S. coffee and snack bars with paid employees. Drinks sold through a drive-through were the largest single line at 22.0%, and drive-through food and drink together were 31.3%. Census publishes no separate coffee line.
Who makes the most-viewed coffee shop and latte art videos on YouTube?
In our November 10, 2026 read of YouTube’s most-viewed ‘coffee shop’ and ‘latte art’ results, media and general creators drew 34.1% of on-topic views, home baristas and coffee educators 31.5%, and baristas with a stated business or title 20.2%; coffee shops, cafés and chains themselves drew 1.9%. One Taiwanese latte-art tutorial channel drew 21.5%.
Do Americans really drink 400 million cups of coffee a day?
We found no original count behind the 400 million figure. The earliest page we found with the line is an espresso-equipment seller’s page archived in December 2004, with no source; a fair-trade group said 450 million in 2000. Government data count gallons, not cups: USDA reported U.S. coffee availability at 24.2 gallons per person in 2005, down from 46.4 in 1946.
Does video increase a coffee shop’s sales?
We found no published conversion test by a coffee shop. The widely repeated “video lifts conversions 80%” comes from one video vendor’s 2009 comparison of viewers with non-viewers on a client site, and Unbounce’s 2021 analysis of about 35,000 landing pages per period found video had a minimal or negative impact.
