Coffee shop sales volume still below pre-pandemic levels

Yahoo Finance Video
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Yahoo Finance's Brian Cheung and Akiko Fujita discuss the pandemic recovery for coffee shops in the U.S. and in Manhattan.

Video Transcript

BRIAN CHEUNG: Well, time now for our Chart of the Day. And on this Friday, we're going to talk about coffee. This chart here comes from Bank of America's merchant data. It shows coffee shop volume, sales volume-- it's actually indexed to January 2020 spending-- we're still about 20% to 25% away from pre-pandemic levels.

Now, one possible explanation-- more people making their cup of joe at home because they're not back in the office five days a week. Akiko, I don't know if you're part of this-- well, we're coming into the office five days a week. So I'll grab Dunkin' on my way in, but.

AKIKO FUJITA: The coffee that I buy will always be better than the coffee I make at home.

BRIAN CHEUNG: Hmm.

AKIKO FUJITA: That's my calculation.

BRIAN CHEUNG: Well--

AKIKO FUJITA: It's going to cost more. It's going to cost more for sure.

BRIAN CHEUNG: It is going to cost more, but I mean, it depends on what equipment you have at home also.

AKIKO FUJITA: Uh, yeah.

BRIAN CHEUNG: French press stinks, actually. French press coffee stinks, yeah.

AKIKO FUJITA: But going back to your point about people not commuting, that's one. But how much of it is also about people cutting back?

BRIAN CHEUNG: That could be part of it, too. Yeah, overall coffee consumption could be going down. However, I also have up here on this chart the purple-- so blue is overall US. Purple is New York City, Midtown specifically. And you saw that the crater actually was a lot deeper in Midtown than it was overall. So that does kind of tell you a little bit about the office story.

However, there are other regions of the United States that actually have above pre-pandemic coffee shop expenditures. California, Texas, and North Carolina are all consuming more coffee then pre-pandemic. Don't know what's going on in those states, although Texas has a high return to office rate, so.

AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It might be some of the policies that are in place locally.