SBA 7(a) Coffee Shop Feasibility Study in New York

Coffee shops across New York

Coffee shop and snack bar lending in New York is small and plentiful. The file for FY2017 to FY2026 holds 360 loans worth $86.0 million, placing the state fifth by count, and the class takes tenth place of the 39 on New York's list. The median is $100,000, only 0.44x the median for coffee shops across the country, with the central half running $30,000 to $275,000. Franchise share is 19.4%, so roughly one loan in five went to a branded unit. These are mostly compact, leased spaces with modest equipment.

Counties and the pandemic

New York County has 67 loans and Kings has 63, then Queens with 32, Suffolk with 29, Erie and Nassau with 24 each and Westchester with 23. Orange has 12, Monroe 11 and Dutchess 7. Approvals fell to 16 in FY2020 and 18 in FY2021, then reached 61 in both FY2025 and FY2026, the highest volume in the series. For a lender, a recent surge like this means the most comparable files are new and have not seasoned.

Lenders

TD Bank, National Association holds 77 loans worth $4.1 million, which implies small tickets, while Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company holds 39 worth $4.6 million, Newtek Bank, National Association 21 worth $12.5 million, KeyBank National Association 21 worth $3.8 million; the table closes with JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association at 20 loans and $3.1 million. Newtek's loans are much larger on average than the rest. The table counts loans on each institution's books and does not describe any lender's requirements.

Outcomes

Cancellation after approval is at least 14.7% for FY2017 to FY2024, and the figure is unchanged when undisbursed loans are counted. Of the 106 funded loans in the early window, 8.5% are charged off to date but only 1.9% inside five years of approval. That gap says most failures happened after the first years. Neither number is final.

What a New York coffee shop study has to test

Foot traffic is everything, so the study has to count pedestrians by hour at the location, not merely note proximity to a station or an office tower. Revenue per transaction, the number of transactions at peak, and the effect of remote work on weekday volume must be tested. Rent is the largest fixed cost, and a lease with escalators can sink a shop that is busy, so the study should model rent against sales by month. A loan near the $100,000 median covers equipment and fit-out, but not a long lease deposit. For a franchised unit, fees belong in the margin. Repayment should hold with sales below the owner's plan, and the lender will want the lease term to outlast the loan.