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June 10, 2026
Mc Cafe post
Luckin Coffee's biggest competitor isn't Cotti or Starbucks. It's McDonald's.
Most people don't think of McCafe as a coffee brand but that's exactly the point.
McCafe operates 43,000 locations across 100 countries. Starbucks has 41,000. Luckin has 33,000+ (almost entirely in China). In 2023 McDonald's opened CosMc's, a standalone beverage spinoff. Churro cold brews and a french toast galaxy latte.
It generates 3x the sale per square foot of a standard McDonald's. It closed all five locations by May 2025. Then moved every menu item into McCafe.
McCafe already generates roughly $3B a year, cold drinks went from 37% of Starbucks US sales in 2013 to 75% by 2024. Now with CosMc's, it might even double...
CosMc’s wasn't failing, it was quite the opposite. It was a market research project with a store attached to it.
The coffee war everyone is watching is Luckin versus every other coffee.
The one nobody is watching already has 43,000 locations and it's already in city.