Barn’s expands to seventh MENA market as store count nears 1,000

Barn’s is no longer expanding like a local Saudi coffee chain. After back-to-back moves into Kuwait and Iraq, the drive-thru operator has added a seventh market in the Middle East and North Africa and is closing in on 1,000 stores, a pace that says as much about confidence as it does about ambition. Three market launches in seven days is not a casual rollout. It is a clear sign that Barn’s believes its format can travel.

Founded in 1992 by Al Amjaad Group, Barn’s spent decades building a Saudi base before it pushed outward. World Coffee Portal reported in February 2023 that the chain was targeting 1,000 stores globally by 2030, and by April that year it had already reached 700 stores in Saudi Arabia. The company later crossed 800 stores in the Kingdom and sharpened its focus on drive-thru and smaller-format units, the kind of setup that fits fast-moving coffee runs and branded consistency.

That playbook has been exported one market at a time. Barn’s opened its first international store in Janabiyah, northwest Bahrain, in May 2024, calling the island a gateway to the wider Gulf. It followed that with a North Africa debut at City Stars Mall in Cairo in August 2024, then signed a franchise agreement to launch in Oman and the United Arab Emirates in October 2025. Barn’s was also exploring an IPO in 2025, another sign that management sees a much bigger platform taking shape.

The scale matters because Barn’s is not just piling up doors. World Coffee Portal described it as the third-largest branded coffee chain in MENA behind Starbucks and Dunkin’, which puts the brand squarely in the regional heavyweight conversation. The wider branded coffee market in the Middle East already has more than 8,870 outlets and is forecast to reach 11,840 by 2027, so the competition is only getting tighter. In that context, Barn’s rapid move across Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Oman, the UAE, Kuwait and Iraq looks less like store-count inflation and more like a Saudi-born chain testing whether homegrown regional brands can become the next serious force in coffee.