Toast Report Shows Lattes Rising as Drip Coffee and Cold Brew Slip

Daily Coffee News photo by Nick Brown.

A new report from Toast suggests U.S. restaurant and cafe customers are increasingly pulling back on staples such as drip coffee, cold brew and traditional teas in favor of certain milk-based espresso drinks, energy drinks and other similarly caffeinated beverages.

Released March 11, the latest Restaurant Trends Report from restaurant and cafe digital solutions company found year-over-year sales growth in 2025 for lattes, espresso shots, americanos and macchiatos, while regular hot drip coffee, cold brew, cappuccinos and frappés all declined.

Toast said the analysis is based on same-store restaurant sales from January 2024 through December 2025 across a cohort on its platform, which served about 164,000 locations as of Dec. 31, 2025.

The Toast report also gathered price data, finding that the median price of a regular drip coffee at restaurants on the platform was $3.65, up 4.3% from February 2025. Meanwhile, the median price of a cold brew coffee was $5.58, up 4.1% from February 2025.

As for sales, the biggest declines through 2025 were found in green tea (-4.9%), black tea (-3.4%), hot drip coffee (-3.3%) and regular soda (-2.3%). Here are some other categories that stood out:

• Lattes: +4.0%

• Espresso shots: +3.3%

• Americanos: +1.4%

• Macchiatos: +0.6%

• Cold brew: -2.2%

• Frappés: -0.6%

• Cappuccinos: -0.4%

Toast framed the shift as a move toward drinks that feel more premium, more specialized and less easily made at home for cafes and restaurants. Yet the report also showed strong growth for non-coffee caffeinated options geared toward canned or bottled convenience, including energy drinks (+8.7%) and diet sodas (+7.4%).

The Toast findings broadly align with recent National Coffee Association market research showing modest continued momentum for specialty coffee. In the Spring 2025 National Coffee Data Trends report, the NCA said 66% of U.S. adults drank coffee in the past day, while specialty coffee reached 46% of adults, up from 39% in 2020. Traditional coffee held relatively flat at 42%, versus 43% in 2020.

The same NCA release said past-day consumption of espresso-based beverages rose to 28% of adults in 2025 from 24% in 2020, while non-espresso specialty beverages — including frozen blended coffee, cold brew and nitro — rose to 17% from 12%.

Toast’s same-store restaurant data showed cold brew sales slipping 2.2% in 2025, even as other recent consumer research and Toast’s own seasonal data suggest cold coffee remains popular and highly weather-dependent.

In an NCA report released in September 2025, cold coffee drinks surged during the summer, with 32% of Americans saying they had cold brew, frozen/blended coffee or nitro within the past week. Within that group, 21% said they had cold brew. In a separate September 2025 report from Toast, the company said cold brew demand more than doubled from winter to summer.

Comments? Questions? News to share? Contact DCN’s editors here. For all the latest coffee industry news, subscribe to the DCN newsletter.