Coffee Shop Feasibility Study in the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX Metro Area

Williamson and Travis counties are neck and neck

Austin's coffee shop record splits almost evenly between two counties: Williamson with 41 loans and Travis with 40, then Hays with 14. That balance, with Williamson narrowly ahead, is the first thing this cell shows. SBA recorded 100 loans for FY2017 to FY2026, $44.7 million gross, ranking the area 19 of 612 nationally and coffee shops 5 of 39 across Austin classes. The location quotient is 1.47x, a clear over-representation.

Franchising is the second feature: 67.0% of loans carry the flag. Loans are sizeable for the class, with a median of $349,450 that is 1.46x the national median and quartiles at $190,500 and $550,750. Programs: 93 loans are 7(a) and 7 are 504. A franchised coffee unit brings a prescribed build-out and recurring fees, so the study must carry those costs in the coverage ratio and not treat the loan as a generic cafe start-up.

Holders

The Huntington National Bank holds 18 loans and $4.9 million, far more than any other. Frost Bank holds 5 loans and $2.9 million. Only those two reach the listing threshold. The list says where SBA-backed lending has landed, and it does not describe the standards any bank applies to a new request.

Outcomes

Approvals cancelled sit at 8.2% or more through FY2024, a modest floor. Several yearly values join the cancellation upper bound and the loss rate on the withheld list; none is zero. With no loss figure published, a lender will have to rely on the study for the downside case.

At 67.0%, the franchise share is among the largest of any coffee cell, so Austin lending to this class is mostly lending to branded units. That changes the questions a lender asks: royalty burden, remodel obligations, territory rights and the franchisor's own performance figures become part of the picture. For an independent concept, the study has to supply what the brand would otherwise provide.

The study should test traffic and visibility on the pad site, the franchisor's fee and remodel schedule, competing units within the trade area, labor supply, and Austin debt service coverage on a request near $349,450. Williamson, Travis and Hays cafes make up the 100 since OMB's July 2023 delineation recognises all three counties; a cafe whose county fails the lookup is dropped, making 100 a lower bound for Austin.