Is it suitable to open a coffee shop in small towns and townships? How should coffee shop products be priced?

The Rise of Small Town Cafés

My boss often tells me: "If you can't make good coffee, go back to the countryside." I never took it seriously until recently, when I kept seeing reports about cafés opening in rural areas. One café in a village became especially popular, hitting single-day sales of more than 550 cups and daily revenue of up to 10,000 yuan. Only then did I realize this was a significant trend.

Since the start of this year, social media platforms have shown more and more small town cafés. Related topics on Xiaohongshu have accumulated over 90,000 posts. Seeing many small town café owners display daily revenues ranging from three or four thousand yuan to over ten thousand has tempted plenty of onlookers. With the pressure of the broader economic environment, waves of young people are choosing to return to their hometowns after graduation or after resigning. Could the "small town café" become a new opportunity?

Considerations for Opening a Small Town Café

In first- and second-tier cities coffee shops are common, but in some small towns, while milk tea shops are everywhere, coffee shops remain relatively new, only slowly emerging over the past two to three years. If you too are tempted to return to a small town to open a café, there are issues you must consider carefully. Be especially cautious and do thorough research; never blindly follow the trend.

Rents in small towns are indeed cheaper and labor costs lower, but the spending level of people in small cities may not be as high as imagined, and coffee pricing needs careful thought. In small towns, the coffee audience is smaller. Are there enough people willing to spend twenty to thirty yuan on a cup to support your daily operations? Is demand really that high? These questions require careful consideration.

Financial Realities and Expectations

In the early stages, you cannot be too focused on the payback period. This is also the biggest downside of opening a café in a small town: the break-even period is long. You need enough financial resources to cover all your living expenses and to maintain the store and its employees. Being the first to open before others react, and seizing the development opportunity, might well lead to success, but today the small town coffee trend has already spread widely.

It would be more realistic to treat the café as a side business while having another source of cash flow. Do not start out thinking the café can bring in thousands or tens of thousands a day like the owners you see online. Breaking even in the early stages is already quite an achievement.

The Hidden Reality Behind Success Stories

Most of what we see online are success stories. We do not know how many failures lie behind them without being reported. Do not get carried away by success stories and a few words from others and impulsively quit your job to go home. Data shows that in recent years, because of the broader environment and the pandemic, the share of coffee shops forced to close has reached as high as 83.3%. At this point you might say the pandemic is now moving in a positive direction.

In reality, though, café closures are partly due to the pandemic and partly because people now prefer convenient instant or canned coffee. On top of that, with the growth of the online economy, coffee retail products have launched rapidly, and more people lean toward delivery coffee. Consumer demand for coffee remains strong, but the purchasing channel has shifted from physical stores to online platforms. In small towns, delivery services are far less mature than in big cities, and building an online channel for the café would significantly raise investment costs.

Dream vs. Reality

Many people today dream of opening a shop, especially in a field they love. Opening a shop often starts from passion and hobby, the feeling that "I love coffee, it is an elegant lifestyle, so I want to open a café."

But compared with dreams, reality can be much harsher, so think carefully before opening. Of course, if you have sufficient funds to invest in your dream, these may not be major problems. Next time my boss tells me to go back to the countryside, I will go pack my bags right away.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

A small town café lives or dies on approachable, well-priced coffee, and FrontStreet's entry-level beans fit that brief. FrontStreet Sun-Dried Huakui from Ethiopia's Sidamo region is a traditional natural with berry, floral, jackfruit, melon, and honey notes, while the FrontStreet Washed Gudingding Cooperative offers the classic Yirgacheffe washed profile of jasmine, lemon acidity, and berries.

If the local palate favors something softer and sweeter, FrontStreet's Cerrado Red Bourbon from Brazil brings the region's familiar cream, peanut, and cocoa flavors at a price built for everyday drinking.