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The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, a coffee chain with more than 1,200 retail outlets around the world, announced in late June that it plans to open 100 new locations in New York City.
The move comes amid speculation that Starbucks may be closing some of its shops there.
The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, based in Los Angeles, will partner with Hudson River Coffee & Tea to launch the New York City expansion. Some stores may open as early as this year. Already there are 311 stores in the United States. The New York initiative is part of a company plan to boost that total to 1,000 nationwide.
“New York has always been an important market for us,” said Coffee Bean vice president J.J. Smith. “Hudson River Coffee & Tea’s successful track record and expertise in real estate development make it the ideal franchisee to bring The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf to coffee and tea-loving New York City.”
The company cited a 2018 poll by Siena College Research Institute stating that 62% of New Yorkers consume coffee daily, and of coffee drinkers, 60% have more than one cup a day.
Starbucks, meanwhile, has announced that it will be closing 150 company-owned outlets this year across the United States. Analysts speculate many of those closures may occur in the New York City market.
Coffee Bean c.e.o. John Fuller told CNN Money that Starbucks poses his company’s primary competition in New York City and he’s counting on what he calls “Starbucks fatigue.”
People want to see a change, he told CNN, and “that helps benefit us as well as other brands.”