Coffee Shop Feasibility Study in the Raleigh-Cary, NC Metro Area

The most brand-heavy coffee record in Wake County's metro

Franchise share of 66.7% means two out of three coffee shop loans in Raleigh-Cary carry a brand. Raleigh-Cary logs 57 coffee shop loans over the FY2017 to FY2026 span, $24.8 million in total. Its $350,000 median is 1.46x nationally, and $150,000 to $589,000 brackets the middle half of the 57. A location quotient of 1.77x shows coffee drawing far more than its national share of local lending.

Rank and program

Raleigh-Cary ranks 37 of 612 in the full field of metro and micro areas, and coffee ranks 5 of 39 here. Raleigh-Cary leaves its 7(a) and 504 tallies unprinted. The sole listed holder is The Huntington National Bank, 9 loans and $2.4 million; SBA records support that count and no reading of the bank's lending.

Years that print

FY2017 had 9 loans and $1.9 million, FY2022 had 5 and $3.3 million, FY2023 had 9 and $5.5 million, FY2024 had 5 and $2.4 million, FY2025 had 9 and $5.1 million and FY2026 has 8 and $3.5 million. The span from FY2018 to FY2021 is withheld for thin counts. Recent dollars suggest the average ticket has risen from the earliest printed year, though the cell does not publish enough to say how much.

A cancellation floor of one in five

Raleigh-Cary coffee sees 20.0% or more of FY2017 to FY2024 approvals cancelled, notably high for a drink-and-snack business. Raleigh-Cary offers no ceiling and no loss figure. A loan joins the Raleigh-Cary tally when its project county, read by name, lies in the July 2023 area.

What a Raleigh coffee study has to resolve

With two-thirds of the loans tied to brands, the franchise agreement is part of the feasibility question: required fees, territory, remodel cycles and sales assumptions. The study should test commuter and campus traffic at the exact site, count rival cafes, and check the build cost against a median near $350,000. A cancellation floor of 20.0% calls for schedule slack in the plan, and the appraiser should separate improvements and equipment from any franchise value. The study should also say whether a drive-through is planned, since that choice changes both the site search and the sales ceiling.