Coffee Shop Feasibility Study in the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN Metro Area

Coffee shops with almost no 504 lending

Chicago logs 204 coffee shop and snack bar loans dated FY2017 through FY2026, worth $72.2 million, fifth of 612 areas for the class though only tenth of 39 within the local mix. Its 0.79x location quotient puts the class beneath its national share. Median size is $241,800, 1.01x the nationwide midpoint, so tickets match the class elsewhere, within quartiles of $84,750 and $480,500. The program mix is more telling: 196 loans are SBA 7(a) and only 8 are SBA 504, so these are working-capital and equipment loans, not real estate loans.

Franchise weight and holders

Franchise affiliation covers 42.2% of loans. Only 7(a) lenders appear in the holder list: The Huntington National Bank with 56 loans worth $14.9 million, Byline Bank at 16 loans and $10.8 million, and next First Bank of the Lake (9 loans, $6.5 million), followed by two names tied at 8 loans: JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association with $2.1 million and, with $1.8 million, Newtek Bank, National Association. No 504 lender is listed because none holds enough loans to be named. These are SBA's holder records and do not describe how any institution underwrites.

Growth, counties and cancellation bounds

Cook County has 111 loans, DuPage 22, Will 18 and Lake, IL 15, with Lake, IN at 12. Annual volume stayed small until FY2023, when 34 loans and $10.7 million were approved; FY2025 reached 46 loans and $22.2 million. This is a market of recent growth, so older averages may not fit a new application. The cancellation floor on FY2017 to FY2024 approvals is 8.2%; adding undisbursed loans lifts it to 12.7%, a ceiling, so the real figure lies between.

The study's scope

No charge-off rate is shown for lack of loans, and its absence is not a zero. Only project counties that find a name match on the 2023 map feed Chicago's total. A coffee shop study in this area must test morning traffic and the trade area, competing shops within walking range, lease cost per square foot against sales, equipment and fit-out budgets, the franchisor's disclosed unit sales if a brand is involved, debt service coverage at a modest ticket, and the appraisal, which for a leased space is mostly a valuation of the business and not of real estate.