Uniqlo and Coach join Ralph Lauren and Capital One in opening cafes

From monogrammed lattes at Louis Vuitton to handbag-inspired pastries at Coach, retail stores are increasingly doubling as cafes.

It’s all part of companies trying to lean into experiences.

“I’ve long said that the easiest way to get in the experience business is to add a cafe because it engages all five senses and it gets customers to spend more time with you,” said Joe Pine, co-author of the Experience Economy.

As the retail landscape evolves post-pandemic, some of the early pioneers in the branded cafe concept are continuing to expand, and new entrants are entering the space.

Uniqlo brought its first coffee bar to the United States in March. It has nine locations worldwide, with the first opening in Japan in 2021.

Uniqlo’s head of marketing, Nico Cessot, told CNBC that the primary reason for the cafes is to bring in more customers and enhance their shopping experience. 

“The interest behind and the concept behind [it] is to make you feel at home, to be part of the brand, to feel the brand, to also spread the Japanese culture. Because we are a Japanese company,” Cessot said. He added that New York City’s Fifth Avenue store uses coffee beans imported from Japan.

Recently, cafes have been particularly prevalent with designer brands.

Over the past few years, fashion house LVMH has opened a Dior cafe in Dallas and Louis Vuitton Cafe in New York. It has also remodeled the Tiffany brand’s Blue Box Café. All three locations are collaborations with Michelin-starred chefs.

Prada, which is not a part of LVMH, is also rumored to be opening a New York location in 2026. The luxury retailer opened a cafe in London in 2023 and in Singapore in 2025.

Coach, meanwhile, opened its first cafe in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2024. Since then, it has opened four in the U.S. and over a dozen more internationally.

Marcus Sanders, Coach vice president of global food and beverage, said the company is seeing double to triple digit sales at stores where it added a cafe. 

“Ultimately what I see happening is there’s this really cool nexus of fashion meets hospitality,” Sanders said. “People are excited to be able to experience their favorite brands in a different way.”

The cafe rollout is also an effort by Coach to tap into popularity with Gen Z, Sanders said, which has been the core demographic driving its cultural resurgence. The brand saw a revenue increase of 22% in its fiscal 2026 first quarter.

While more brands are adding cafes to their stores, this trend is not a new phenomenon. Barnes and Noble and Target have both partnered with Starbucks for their in-store cafes since 1993 and 1999, respectively.

Capital One and Ralph Lauren both opened their first cafes in 2014. Capital One told CNBC that it now operates 65 cafes nationally. Ralph Lauren, meanwhile, operates over 40 cafes across the world, including in cities like London, Barcelona, Hong Kong and Singapore. Both companies are continuing to expand, with new openings planned for 2026.

Pine said Covid decimated the experience economy but that people are looking to spend their time out and about again. He noted that cafes are one of the primary ways to do that.

But as more companies jump on the trend, it will become increasingly commoditized, he said.

“It’s something that you need to refresh to think about how you change this over time and you need to design it uniquely,” Pine said. “The Tiffany Blue Box Cafe [is] a beautiful example of that, so that it’s not just about the coffee, it’s about immersing you in the brand values, in the brand colors, in what it stands for.”

Coach put its own spin on the concept with pastries like the Tabby cake, an edible version of one of its best-selling handbags.

At Capital One, cardholders of the namesake bank and Discover, which it acquired in a $35 billion stock deal in 2025, get half off beverage purchases.

Unlike Coach, the bank doesn’t run the food and beverage operations. Capital One said its cafes are independently run by a third-party provider and it does not share in profits or losses. The bank can instead focus its efforts on how to leverage the space to increase its brand awareness.

“Bank accounts and credit cards and money are things that don’t always feel tangible. And so the cafes can show up as a personification of what is Capital One,” said Jennifer Windbeck, Capital One’s head of retail bank channels.

Uniqlo said it owns and operates the majority of its cafes, including the one inside its New York City flagship location, which has a coffee bar on the second floor of the store.

Cessot said the goal was to make it a service area where guests can come pick up online orders, get their clothing repaired and customize their apparel. 

“There’s one aspect that is making profits, which we are obviously monitoring week over week, month over month. And then the second aspect is really about the customer. And really the reason why we opened this coffee is to really help our customer and enhance their shopping experience,” Cessot said.

Watch the video to learn more about why so many retailers are opening cafes.

— CNBC’s Melissa Repko contributed to this report