• by Todd Wasserman , April 28, 2023

Foot traffic is picking up in the nation’s top coffee establishments, according to researcher Placer.ai.

The researcher found that visits to Starbucks rose in the high single digits in February, peaking at +9.1% compared with 2022. Visits to Dunkin’ were less robust and bottomed out at a negative 9% YOY in the last week of February.

Among the other coffee chains that Placer.ai tracked were Dutch Bros., which saw a 32.8% jump YOY in visits in late March and Peet’s Coffee, which topped out at a rise of 23.9% in the first week of January compared with 2022.

The figures are good news for Starbucks, which experienced a 6.4% to 10% monthly YOY visit gap throughout the fourth quarter of 2022. Dunkin’ also saw its visit gap begin to narrow with foot traffic for the second week of April just 0.5% lower than it was in April 2022.

That may be a sign that Dunkin’s new ad campaign, via Anomaly, featuring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez in a Super Bowl ad, may have helped sales, though the evidence isn’t yet overwhelming.

Starbucks’ “A little kindness” ad, via Anomaly, seems to have fared a bit better. Starbucks also introduced olive-oil-infused coffee recently, but some customers on Reddit have complained of stomach issues because of those drinks.