Ask anyone about the economy right now, and you’ll hear petrol is up, interest rates are up, and households are stretched.

But walk into a coffee shop at 7am, and you’ll often see a queue of regulars. 

So which is the real picture? And what are the coffee businesses finding growth doing differently? In this article, we look at data from coffee businesses partnered with Yoco to find out.

The morning rush is getting busier

Coffee is deeply embedded in our lives from the morning coffee on the school run to catching up with friends after a Saturday run.

The data shows just how important coffee is to those rituals. And for coffee businesses, understanding where you fit into your customers' routine can be the thing that opens everything up.

One of the clearest places we see that ritual is in the morning rush. That moment has always mattered. But it's becoming more and more important.

Across cafés and coffee-led businesses partnered with Yoco, morning trade is growing faster than any other time of day. At cafés that have been with Yoco since 2023, payments between 6am and 9am grew 57%. At coffee-led businesses, one in four payments now happens before 9am, with 10% happening at 7am alone.

It's a reminder of how central coffee is to our routines. And it helps explain why, even with everything going on in the economy, coffee businesses on Yoco are still growing in 2026. 

Coffee businesses on Yoco are still growing in 2026

To understand the growth, we need to separate two things. On the one hand, you have growth coming from more coffee businesses joining Yoco. On the other, there’s growth coming from the businesses within it getting better.

Over the last three years, the number of cafés and coffee-led businesses partnering with Yoco has grown by 10%. In the first nine months of 2026 alone, they processed more than R4 billion in card payments as new businesses find ways to carve out their niche and make it work.

And it's not just new businesses popping up. These businesses are lasting. Of the cafés that started with Yoco in 2023, 45% were still trading on Yoco two years later. Across all other food businesses, that figure is 32%.

We're also seeing a shift in what people order. Flat whites and cortados are gaining on the cappuccino, with sales per café up 15% and 19% respectively, against 4% for the cappuccino. 

Matcha is now on twice as many café menus as last year, and sales per café are up 38%.  

Coffee businesses are trying to find growth as costs rise

So, while the country’s coffee habit is healthy, it doesn't automatically mean healthy businesses. 

These are some of the biggest challenges facing South Africa’s coffee businesses. 

Let's start with the price of putting a cup on the counter.

Right now, the typical cappuccino across Yoco-partnered cafés costs about R40, an 8% increase from 2025. At the same time, the typical Americano is up 13%. There are two main contributors to this increase.

The first is the cost of beans: In 2024 and 2025, arabica coffee hit record prices while the Rand struggled. Because South Africa grows very little of its own coffee, the weak Rand pushed up the cost of buying beans. 

The second is the cost of running the business. Global coffee bean prices are now about a third off their peak last year, but the price of petrol has risen rapidly over the course of the year. In that time, the cost of electricity went up and interest rates rose twice.

That’s shifted the pressure on these businesses from the price of the bean to the cost of actually running their operations. 

We can see that in menu prices. Using data from items loaded onto Yoco's point of sale systems, average menu prices are up between 5% and 13%, depending on the item. But at established cafés (those trading on Yoco every month of both years), the average amount per sale is up just 2%.

Coffee businesses have raised prices, but customers are keeping their spend per visit almost flat. And this is where the industry’s growth and struggle connect: People are protecting their coffee ritual but it looks like they’re trimming the extras.

In other words, customers are protecting the daily coffee ritual, but now businesses have to work out how to make the most of it in a tougher trading environment.

Joburg and Cape Town’s coffee cultures 

So far, we've looked at what's happening across South Africa’s coffee industry. But how are those trends playing out in South Africa's two biggest coffee cities? 

Across South Africa’s two largest coffee markets, businesses in each city are adopting different business models to suit different coffee cultures. 

Cape Town: the largest market, boosted by visitors

Cape Town is South Africa's biggest café market on Yoco. It has the highest number of coffee businesses in the country, and they’re processing more payments a month on average. 

Cape Town’s coffee shops also process more per transaction at about R161, compared with R136 in Joburg.

This might be influenced by Cape Town’s coffee businesses getting a big boost from visitors. About 26% of café card spend in the city comes from foreign cards. In Joburg, only 6% comes from foreign visitors. 

Joburg: early mornings and weekend rituals

Joburg’s coffee scene is a different picture. The city has fewer cafés than Cape Town, processes fewer payments on average, and there's far less foreign spend.

But Joburg is where new businesses are opening. The number of cafés is up 11% from 2025. Over the last three years, the number of coffee-led businesses in Joburg has grown by 44%.

How people spend is different too. Joburg’s customers are getting their coffee earlier with almost 17% of café payments happening before 9am.

Joburg's coffee culture is also very much a weekend thing. About 37% of café card spend happens on Saturdays and Sundays. The average Saturday payment is almost R100 more than Monday’s average.

Growth comes from understanding where you fit into your customers’ routines

Coffee can be protective for a lot of businesses because it sits inside rituals and everyday routines. If customers are protecting that ritual, the opportunity lies in making the ritual worth more, or to reach customers beyond it.

Here are five ways coffee-led businesses are doing that. 

1. Look beyond the cup

Across coffee businesses, a coffee-only order averages around R80. One that includes food averages about R205. However, only about one in five coffee orders includes food.

And it doesn't have to be a full meal. It can be something small that complements the coffee, like a baked good that lifts the value of every order and makes the ritual a little bit more special. 

2. Sell the coffee your regulars drink at home

A third of coffee bars now sell beans for customers to take home. 

Online sales account for just 1.6% of café card spend. 

So it's not a trend yet but there is an opportunity to reach customers beyond your neighbourhood, or even partner with coffee shops in other cities. Tools like Yoco Online make it easier to sell your beans and merchandise beyond the counter.

3. Know your regulars

Coffee businesses run on locals. At the 120 cafés using Yoco Loyalty, half of members came back twice or more in September, and they made up three-quarters of member spend. Rewarding your regulars and building the habit of coming back to you makes good business sense.

Coffee shops seem to know this better than most. Cafés are adopting Yoco Loyalty at four to five times the rate of other food businesses. That shows how much regulars matter to coffee businesses.

4. Optimise for your peak

Mornings are when coffee-led businesses are busiest, so staffing, prep and grab-and-go food should match that. That's where the routine is, and that's where the growth is.

For some businesses, the opposite might work too. So if mornings are crowded in your area, becoming the place that's better set up for the afternoon or evening could be your edge.

5. Plan for a hot summer

A very strong El Niño is under way, and the South African Weather Service expects a hotter, drier summer than usual. As temperatures rise, customers shift to iced and cold coffee drinks to beat the heat. 

These drinks already make up about 12% of all drinks sold, and their sales are up 39% year on year. Getting your iced menu ready now is a way to get ahead of the curve, and be ready as people's tastes shift with the heat.

Reading your own barometer

Everything we’ve looked at comes back to the moments in our lives when we reach for coffee. The data shows that coffee really is a barometer of what’s going on around us.

But every coffee business already has its own barometer based on when your customers come in, what they add to their order, and who keeps coming back.

With the Yoco App, you can read it in real time. Track your coffee sales, see what’s selling and when, and watch your reporting update live, all from your phone.

About the data: All figures cover card and online payments taken through Yoco at about 5,150 cafés and coffee-led businesses, January to September each year unless stated. Cash isn’t included, so these figures don’t represent the whole South African coffee market.