Louisa Coffee plans 30 new Taiwan cafes as growth accelerates

Louisa Coffee is moving to add at least 30 new company-owned cafes in Taiwan by the end of 2026, a fast push that puts the Taipei chain directly up against Starbucks’ 600-store footprint in the market. The expansion is more than a headcount race: Louisa is trying to turn its familiar neighborhood brand into something bigger, with coffee still at the center but a wider retail and hospitality play behind it.

That shift matters because Louisa built its reputation on being the cheaper, more local-feeling alternative to Starbucks. The company launched in Taipei in 2006, and its own material says the first shop opened that year after four years of work on the brand’s signature formula. Government-backed investment material adds that founder Huang Ming-hsien personally oversaw green-bean selection, roasting and quality control from the start, a detail that still anchors the chain’s specialty-coffee identity.

The growth base is already large. Taiwan-linked reporting put Louisa at about 560 stores in Taiwan last year, with a goal of passing 600 domestic locations this year. That makes the new 30-store company-owned plan less like a tentative test and more like an effort to protect market share while the chain scales in a country where coffee drinkers already know its price point and house style.

Louisa is also showing it wants more than a bigger Taiwan map. In West Hollywood, the company opened a soft-launch cafe at 7626 Santa Monica Boulevard, its first U.S. location, giving it a physical foothold in Los Angeles. Reviews describe the space as part café, part coworking space and part art gallery, and reporting says Louisa roasts its beans in-house there. In September 2025, the company signaled a 2026 IPO and U.S. debut through a joint venture for Los Angeles, framing the West Hollywood opening as part of a broader international build rather than a one-off splash.

The brand is also branching beyond coffee. Louisa’s buffet chain, Qingyan, has been targeting 15 locations next year, and the company has already introduced a joint gym-and-coffee-shop concept in Songshan. Taken together, those moves show a group trying to stretch the Louisa name across more occasions without losing the shorthand that made it work in Taiwan: recognizable coffee, quick service and a price point that still undercuts the global chain sitting across the street.