Post Office Coffee Opens "Day Coffee, Night Alcohol" Concept Store!

The Rise of "Day Coffee, Night Alcohol" Culture

"Morning C, Evening A" was originally a skincare buzzword — vitamin C products in the morning, vitamin A at night. But the food and beverage industry has given the phrase a whole new meaning: morning coffee, evening alcohol. Propelled across social media, the "coffee + alcohol" day-coffee-night-alcohol model has sent a wave through the industry, drawing in brand after brand and gradually shaping itself into an entirely new consumption pattern.

Post Office Coffee Opens Its First Day-Coffee-Night-Alcohol Concept Store

Yesterday, Post Office Coffee announced on its official WeChat account that the nation's first day-coffee-night-alcohol concept store has officially opened in Fuzhou. To mark the occasion, Post Office Coffee launched two Fuzhou-limited drinks: "You Dian Fu Yu" (Post Luck Taro), which contains coffee, and "Taro Paste Milk," a coffee-free option.

Post Office Coffee is a coffee shop chain opened by China Post. The stores sell coffee, tea drinks, desserts, and more, with coffee and tea priced between 20-40 yuan and both in-store pickup and delivery available. Fusing two completely different elements — post office and coffee — lets the emotional weight of the China Post name collide with coffee's leisure culture, creating a national-trend brand that young people love while conveying its own sense of culture and beauty.

Post Office Coffee's Expansion Strategy

Since February 14, 2022, when China Post's first Post Office Coffee opened in Xiamen, the ordering mini-program shows the brand has grown to 10 stores across four cities: Fujian, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, and Beijing. According to reports, Post Office Coffee operates on a self-operated model and has not yet opened franchising.

On May 15 — three months after the first store opened — Post Office Coffee welcomed its second store nationwide, also in Xiamen, this time on Xiamen's Cat Street. This location folds elements of the surrounding Cat Street environment into the postal theme, featuring cat motifs and aiming to give cats and cat lovers alike a place to rest and interact.

In June, China Post's third coffee shop set its sights on campuses. Coinciding with Southeast University's 120th anniversary, Post Office Coffee's first campus store nationwide opened at the university, introducing stamp cup stickers blending China Post and Southeast University elements along with exclusive limited teas and desserts. Since then, Post Office Coffee has accelerated its expansion into Beijing and Jiangxi, steadily probing the coffee market, following development trends, and now opening day-coffee-night-alcohol concept stores.

Industry Competition in the Day-Coffee-Night-Alcohol Market

Post Office Coffee is far from alone. As early as 2019, industry veteran Starbucks was already building a coffee-plus-alcohol model, opening its first "Starbucks Reserve Coffee & Bar" on Shanghai's Bund. Seesaw and M Stand followed with their own day-coffee-night-alcohol experiments; according to reports, M Stand has already launched five themed stores across Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Ningbo.

More recently, Tims debuted a new format called "Coffee & Beer" in Shanghai, running on the day-coffee-night-alcohol model. The alcohol menu centers on beer — 31 varieties in all, from fruit wines to wheat beers — priced between 25-58 yuan, operating from 7 AM to midnight. Even Cotti Coffee, the new brand founded by Luckin Coffee's Lu Zhengyao, has aligned itself with the day-coffee-night-alcohol route, though at present its WeChat mini-program only lists different series of coffees for ordering.

The Business Potential of Day-Coffee-Night-Alcohol

Notice the pattern: every one of these brands moves from coffee toward alcohol, extending its product line into alcoholic beverages — all part of the powerful day-coffee-night-alcohol camp. The model makes up for coffee shops' weak nighttime business. Coffee has limited consumption scenarios after dark, but if a shop transforms into a bar at night, it keeps selling to the same users in a different scenario, generating extra income on top of the day's revenue. It may well be an important experiment in finding new growth for coffee brands.

Post Office Coffee certainly has China Post's big tree behind it, and its location advantages and store resources are real strengths — but the coffee market is brutally competitive. Only by accelerating deployment toward multi-period operations and scenario-unlimited models can it improve its odds of success.

Image source: Internet

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

However creative the store concepts get, the day side of "day coffee, night alcohol" still comes down to what's in the cup. For a dependable daytime menu, FrontStreet Coffee's Black Cocoa Blend is a high-value commercial option: 100% Arabica beans with generous crema and a full, mellow body at a price that's easy on the books — quality and cost-effectiveness in one bag. The FrontStreet Classic Blend, meanwhile, is the first-choice pick for espresso machines and moka pots, built on the traditional Mamba formula with a touch of Robusta for extra-thick, velvety crema that makes lattes and cappuccinos sing whether your barista is a veteran or a trainee.

Good beans by day, good vibes by night — but it's the daytime cup that earns the regulars who come back for both.