Coffee Shop Feasibility Study in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA Metro Area

Franchised coffee in the Inland Empire

More than half of the coffee shop loans in Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario carry a franchise flag, 57.8% in all, which is the feature that separates this record from Bay Area coffee lending. For coffee shops and snack bars, SBA approved 102 loans from FY2017 into FY2026, adding up to $24.9 million. The location quotient of 0.84x is light, a $223,500 median is 0.93x what coffee shops borrow at the median nationally, while half of loans range from $50,000 to $349,875. The area ranks 17 of 612 across the country, though in its own mix coffee shops are a minor class, tenth (10 of 39).

Two counties and a lot of blanks

Riverside County supplies 57 loans and San Bernardino County 45. Four items are blank by design: the 7(a) and 504 counts, the FY2019 and FY2021 yearly figures, the cancellation rate with undisbursed loans included, and the charge-off rate. In each case the source found too few loans to print. None of those values is zero. The years that are printed show a rise to 21 loans in FY2023 and 17 in FY2024, followed by 13 in FY2025 and 8 in FY2026.

Banks that hold the loans

U.S. Bank, National Association holds 16 loans but only $506,500 in all, a very small average. The Huntington National Bank holds 12 worth $2.3 million, Bank of Hope 7 worth $2.9 million, First Bank of the Lake 6 worth $2.1 million and Open Bank 5 worth $1.3 million. Each name is the holder of record SBA shows now, perhaps not the originator, and none of it reveals any institution's appetite for coffee shops.

Cancellation floor

Cancellation after approval reaches a floor of 17.3% for the FY2017 to FY2024 approvals, which echoes the Bay Area coffee page. A reader should treat it as a minimum, and should treat the lack of a charge-off rate as unknown.

Testing an Inland Empire coffee shop

A franchise study starts from the franchisor's required investment and the sales of existing units in similar trade areas, then asks whether traffic, parking and drive-through potential at the specific site can justify one more unit. A suburban pad site and an urban storefront have different costs, and the study should be explicit about which it is. With tickets near $223,500, the money likely goes to a lease build-out and equipment, so the plan should show lease terms and permits already in hand, given the cancellation floor. Coverage should be shown after royalties and in a slower first year. Riverside and San Bernardino both fall inside July 2023's area definitions.