Cooks Coffee Company is ahead of its annual openings target, of 20 shops per year, having opened 11 sites during the first half of 2025, and with enough sites already in the pipeline to “double that again before the end of the financial year”, CEO Aiden Keegan told MCA.
“We’re a little bit ahead of where we wanted to be,” Keegan said in terms of its openings target. We’re going to aim for 20, but if we beat it, that would be the cherry on top.
Upcoming openings include Gerrards Cross and Gateshead - which both open on 8 October - followed by Chesham, Walthamstow, Wantage and Oakham, Keegan confirmed.
The operator of the Esquires coffee shop franchise reported yesterday (29 September) reported a 26.9% increase in total sales for its UK and Ireland Esquires sites, in the 26 weeks to 28 September 2025, with new site openings helping to drive revenue.
UK sales were up by 26.7%, as a result of the company’s enlarged estate, – currently 77 coffee shops – alongside positive like-for-like sales growth of +3.5%.
Its Irish coffee shops, of which it has 20, achieved a 27.4% increase in overall sales, with like-for-like sales growth of +6.4%, indicating underlying strength in its established stores, Cooks said. The company added two new sites to its Irish estate in the period.
While the business has put through price increases to counter the impact of inflation on goods and labour, Keegan said that it had been seeing like-for-like sales growth over and above this.
Commenting on what types of location have been performing well for the business, Keegan said that while it does look for opportunities on the high street, “what has been really good for us is residential developments – with north of 1,200 residential units”.
Due to planning requirements for these kinds of developments necessitating a parade of shops, including something social, Keegan said the relationships it has cultivated with developers, as well as some of the supermarkets that operate convenience stores in these locations, has been paying off.
“Having said that, some of our most recent really successful units, like Pinner or Ruislip, have been on high streets,” he added.
The company is also exploring the idea of opening a drive-thru coffee shop at some point in the future – when it has reached a certain critical mass – “but we are not there yet”.
In terms of developments outside new openings, Cooks Coffee Company is also focused on developing the look and feel of its shops. Keegan said the business is keen to avoid ‘cookie-cutter’ coffee shops, but due to the frequency of its new openings, “we have fallen into that a bit”.
“We are now working with some designers on how we can maintain the momentum in terms of new store openings but also changing it up a little as we go so that is constantly feels fresh.”
While Keegan is “very satisfied that our coffee is top notch, the difference in terms of what we offer you as a customer is the food”, he adds. “We are constantly working at that and trying to innovate.”
At a minimum, its dishes are made fresh that day, with the majority of them being made fresh to order, he said, with its food offering its USP in the wider coffee shop market.
Modern day coffee shop customers are “getting a lot more sophisticated” he added, with the demographic also shifting from the ‘grey pound’ to a much younger generation, which Keegan suggested was in part down to young people being less interested in alcohol.
