The Beverage Boom: How drinks are reshaping QSR & CRE

October 02, 2025

The Beverage Boom: How drinks are reshaping QSR & CRE

Welcome back to On The Ground, your bi-monthly CRE newsletter powered by DealGround.

Over the last five years, we’ve watched beverage-first QSRs explode - and now the category is really starting to take shape. Dutch Bros, 7 Brew, Swig and others have proven that drinks alone can anchor a business, and they’ve done it with speed, scale, and strong unit economics. What began as a few small-format drive-thru locations has evolved into a national focus on capturing market share, fueled by the daily demand habits of consumers.

Why they work:

  • Throughput over footprint: compact dual-lane buildings designed for processing cars quickly and efficiently.

  • Simple menus: lean SKUs and fast prep avoid kitchen slowdowns and wasted square footage.

  • High-margin economics: beverages deliver stronger profitability than food-heavy menus.

  • Built-in recurring habits: morning coffee, afternoon energy, evening “treat runs.”

Legacy QSRs have taken notice:

  • Chick-fil-A’s Daybright (launching Fall ’25 near Atlanta) marks their first beverage-only concept.

  • Taco Bell Live Más Café—30 locations by year-end, with expanded drink menus and alcohol.

  • McDonald’s CosMc’s didn’t last, but sparked a beverage innovation arm within the Golden Arches.

  • And Sonic quietly reminds everyone it built a traffic empire on slushes decades ago.

These concepts are the fastest-growing QSRs in the US

  • Dutch Bros: 441 units in 2020 to 1,000+ in 2025; ~$2M AUV.

  • 7 Brew: fastest-growing chain in the U.S., AUV just above $2M.

  • Swig: 100+ units today and climbing via franchising.

The impact for CRE professionals

  • More tenant options: beverage-first concepts are now competing head-to-head for prime sites, giving landlords and developers more leasing options.

  • Capital is flowing: investors are extremely comfortable treating these as quality single-tenant assets.

  • Tenant of choice: Dutch Bros is leading the pack, offering longer-term leases and proving to be landlord-friendly. But 7 Brew, Swig, and others are coming right behind them.

Where We’re Going and What to Look Out For

Not every shiny concept will last, Swig’s soda-heavy play is questionable, but the category isn’t going away. For years, Starbucks was the only beverage-first game in town. Now landlords and investors have options, and the STNL landscape has already been reshaped. Developers saw it early, which is why these brands have been able to scale so quickly.

The real question now is: which concepts will make the strongest run over the next five years?

LFG!

The DealGround Team