Coffee Shop and Drive-Through Coffee Feasibility Study for SBA 7(a), SBA 504 and Bank Loans

Drive-through coffee is the fastest-growing restaurant format of the decade and the one where the brand decides whether a $1.5 million project can carry its debt. MMCG Invest prepares coffee shop and drive-through coffee feasibility studies for SBA 7(a), SBA 504 and conventional financing that model the unit at the volume tier the brand's own Item 19 supports, test the kiosk's classification as equipment or real estate because it moves the loan maturity from ten years to twenty-five, map every competing drive-through within three and five miles against a pipeline that is adding hundreds of units a year, model the queue against the stacking code and the observed line, and report the debt service coverage ratio (DSCR) on both maturities so the lender sees the structure that works.

Coffee demand is stable and shifting to the lane. Sixty-six percent of American adults drank coffee the prior day in each of the last four National Coffee Association surveys, specialty coffee reached a record 48 percent in the survey fielded June 2026, 38 percent of past-day drinkers bought out of home, the highest since January 2020, and 55 percent of out-of-home buyers in the prior week ordered at a drive-through. Cold coffee rose to 21 percent of past-day consumption from 16 percent in 2022. The occasion has moved from the counter to the car, and from the morning to the afternoon: 7 Brew's traffic skews afternoon and evening on energy and flavored drinks while Scooter's skews morning, Dutch Bros takes 32.6 percent of its visits before 11 a.m. against 43.1 percent for the category.

The supply side is a unit-count race. Dutch Bros ended the second quarter of 2026 at 1,225 shops with at least 185 openings planned for the year and a target of 2,029 by 2029. 7 Brew added a net 281 units in 2025, passed 800 locations in September 2026 and projects 447 franchised openings in 2026. Scooter's had 242 signed-but-unopened agreements against 85 openings in 2025. The two leaders now bid against each other for sites. Starbucks moved the other way, closing 627 company stores in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025 and announcing about 250 more in September 2026 while cutting its 2026 opening plan to about 440. The general method and the SOP 50 10 8.1 spine are on the restaurant feasibility study hub; the corridor and stacking method is on the QSR and drive-through feasibility study page.

The 2026 disclosure documents put the brands in three tiers, and a $1.5 million project pencils at one of them. 7 Brew's 2026 FDD reports 320 stores open the full year at an average of $2.658 million and a median of $2.569 million, a high of $6.366 million and a low of $836,418, with franchised stores at $2.646 million average; its prior-year document reported $1.989 million for franchised stores and a store-level EBITDAR of about 29 percent, and the 30 percent jump between documents cannot be split between growth and cohort change without the FDD text. 7 Brew sells ten-store commitments and its applications are reported closed, so a first-unit franchisee cannot buy into that tier today. Scooter's reports a kiosk average of $998,869 with EBITDA of $134,457, a 14.6 percent margin, and a top quartile at $1,433,875 and 20.7 percent. The Human Bean's affiliate stores averaged $896,744 with EBITDA of $112,992, 12.6 percent. Biggby's drive-through format averaged $756,742 with EBITDA of $108,651, 14.0 percent. Ziggi's reports $836,332. Dutch Bros, which does not sell conventional franchises, reports a systemwide trailing-twelve-month unit volume of $2.193 million and a company shop contribution margin of 30.6 percent; Black Rock Coffee Bar, company-operated, reports $1.288 million and 30.2 percent.

The arithmetic follows. A $1.35 million 7(a) loan at the October 2026 cap of 10.00 percent over ten years costs about $214,100 a year and needs about $267,600 of EBITDA at 1.25 times, which at a 14.6 percent margin is about $1.83 million of sales. Scooter's average kiosk EBITDA of $134,457 covers that at about 0.63 times. The same loan over 25 years costs about $147,200 and needs about $184,000 of EBITDA, about $1.26 million of sales. The study models three tiers, about $780,000, $1.0 million and $2.0 million, and shows DSCR on both maturities, because the brand and the maturity together decide the file.

A modular kiosk on a ground-leased pad is the typical structure, and nothing in the published SBA text classifies it. The 7(a) maturity is ten years unless the loan funds real estate, which takes 25 years, or equipment with a useful life beyond ten; leasehold improvements take ten years plus up to twelve months to complete. A kiosk financed as equipment is a ten-year loan. A kiosk that is permanently affixed and appraised as real property, on a ground lease whose term including borrower-only options runs at least 25 years, may support the longer maturity. The difference is about 45 percent of DSCR, and the study presents both and states the lease and appraisal conditions each requires. SOP 50 10 8.1 requires that where leasehold improvements reach $500,000 or 30 percent of proceeds the lease term including borrower-only options should equal or exceed the loan term, and that a financed ground lease give the lender the rights to encumber, approve modification, acquire and reassign at foreclosure, sublease, and share in insurance and condemnation proceeds. The program rules are on the SBA 7(a) feasibility study page.

The ground lease itself is priced by the net lease market. 7 Brew pads have been listed at $90,000 to $125,000 of annual rent at asking cap rates of 5.85 to 6.75 percent on 0.69 to 1.16 acre sites carrying 20,000 to 38,000 vehicles a day, with 10 percent bumps every five years. That rent is 3.4 to 4.7 percent of a $2.658 million store and 9 to 12.5 percent of a $1.0 million kiosk, which is the volume-tier problem again. Starbucks net lease asked 6.50 percent in the second quarter of 2026 and the overall net lease market 6.92 percent in the third.

The coffee drive-through is a trip generator out of proportion to its size. The ITE 11th edition assigns a coffee or donut shop with drive-through 534 daily trips per 1,000 square feet and 86 in the AM peak hour, with 49 percent pass-by. Municipal impact fees price that: Bothell, Washington charges $91,954 per 1,000 square feet for the use, so a 510 square foot stand owes about $46,900, and the study carries the fee as a line in the budget. The corridor count, its direction split and the work-bound side of the road at the morning peak are the generator, and the study names the DOT station.

Stacking is where coffee sites fail. Most codes require four to six queued cars per lane. Saint Paul measured maximum coffee queues of 16 and adopted a 14-space coffee standard on March 4, 2026; a 7 Brew in Warrenville, Illinois was required to provide 37 spaces by its traffic study; sites in Huber Heights and Sidney, Ohio planned 14 and 19 against code minimums of five and four. The study models the queue from the AM peak trip count and the brand's service time, with the bypass lane and the second lane the prototype requires, and reports whether the site can hold the line without blocking the street. 7 Brew's FDD puts its lot range at 8,000 to 50,000 square feet for a 510 square foot building, which is the stacking land.

National visits per location were still rising at the leaders through 2026, with 7 Brew's visits up 41.6 percent and per-location visits up 1.7 percent, and Scooter's per-location visits up 3.7 percent, so saturation has not appeared in the national data. It appears locally. Black Rock's same-store sales slowed from 10.9 percent to 4.2 percent with transactions down 2.0 percent; Scooter's units ceasing for other reasons rose from two in 2023 to 24 in 2025 as its openings fell from 209 to 85; Dutch Bros' own analyst coverage warned of saturation in its initial markets. The study maps every Dutch Bros, 7 Brew, Scooter's, Starbucks, Dunkin' and regional drive-through within three and five miles, reads the municipal permit record for approved drive-throughs not yet open, and haircuts revenue where a competitor sits on the same commute side within about a mile. That is MMCG method, not a published standard, and the study says so.

Coffee cost lines are consistent across disclosures: beverage, food and packaging at 26.3 percent at 7 Brew, 27.0 percent at Black Rock, 29.3 percent at Biggby and 31.9 percent at The Human Bean's affiliates; labor at 21.0 percent at Black Rock, a scaled company operator, and 30 to 33 percent at the franchised brands including payroll taxes; card fees at about 1.7 percent; rent at 4.2 percent and utilities at 2.2 percent at The Human Bean. A first-unit franchisee is modeled at the franchised labor ratio, not the public-company one.

Green coffee is the one commodity that matters. Arabica reached an all-time high of 440.85 cents a pound in February 2025, traded above $4 again in September 2025 and between about $3.20 and $3.87 through 2026, roughly double its pre-2024 norm, after a 50 percent U.S. tariff on Brazilian coffee was imposed and removed in November 2025. The BLS coffee index rose 18.5 percent in the year to April 2026. The chains passed it through, with Dutch Bros' company-shop ticket up 4.9 percent; an independent cafe selling drip and espresso at 25 to 30 percent cost of goods absorbs it. The study tests beverage cost three points up.

A kiosk on a ground lease is a 7(a) project: the franchise fee, the kiosk, equipment, signage and working capital are eligible, the standard floor is 1.15 times and a 7(a) Small loan carries 1.10 times. 7 Brew's 2026 Item 7 runs $940,500 to $2,283,500 and requires a ten-store commitment; Scooter's kiosk equipment runs $181,750 to $191,300 with signs at $52,500 to $58,400 and an aggregator-reported total of $1.2 to $1.3 million; The Human Bean's building, equipment and construction line runs $467,000 to $1,095,000 on a total of $572,090 to $1,298,903; Biggby's whitebox format runs $242,200 to $610,000. Dutch Bros reported average capital expenditure of $1.3 million per new shop in the fourth quarter of 2025 and first quarter of 2026. A $1.5 million project with a $1.0 million-volume brand produces a sales-to-investment ratio below 0.7, and the study shows that ratio next to the brand's own investment range. A coffee shop that buys its building is a 504 project; a restaurant is not special-purpose by SBA's list, so an established operator contributes 10 percent and a new business 15 percent, and the rules are on the SBA 504 feasibility study page.

The brand's loss record is reported with its method. Biggby shows no charge-offs on 72 resolved loans in the fiscal 2010 to 2019 cohort and 3.2 percent on 300 loans across all years; Dunkin' about 7.8 percent on seasoned loans; the snack and non-alcoholic beverage bar category, which is the NAICS home of coffee, smoothie and boba chains, about 10.1 percent on the 2010 to 2019 cohort; Scooter's book is too young for a meaningful rate.

No rigorous public benchmark exists for the independent walk-in cafe, and the study does not publish ratios it cannot source. What the record establishes is the structure: specialty demand at a record, out-of-home share back near its pre-pandemic level, green coffee at double its old cost, and 55 percent of out-of-home buyers using a drive-through. A walk-in-only independent without a lane or a loyalty app faces the most margin pressure in the format, and an independent cafe file is written from the seat-and-ticket method on the independent full-service restaurant feasibility study page with the coffee cost lines above.

A MMCG coffee study includes the corridor and AM-peak analysis with the DOT station named, the stacking model against the adopted code and the observed queue, the three- and five-mile competitor map with the permitted pipeline, the Item 19 reconciliation at the brand's tier, the Item 7 cost test, the ground lease test against both maturities, the operating projection on the disclosed cost lines, the DSCR schedule on ten- and twenty-five-year maturities with break-even and sensitivities, the impact fee line and a signed conclusion. Standard delivery is nine to sixteen business days; expedited delivery in five to seven is available. Fees begin at $4,900 for a single-site 7(a) study. Revisions required by the lender or agency are made at no additional cost under MMCG's written acceptance guarantee. See MMCG's feasibility study methodology and where we work.

Drive-through coffee kiosk on a ground lease, SBA 7(a): a $1.5 million first unit in Olathe, Kansas, not feasible at brand-average volume (0.62 times), feasible as restructured to $1.3 million at 20 percent equity only on a site forecast at the brand's top quartile (1.52 times), or on a twenty-five-year maturity the SOP does not clearly allow. The franchise document method is on the restaurant franchise feasibility study page.