Our Communities

We go where we’re needed most.

Cafecito is proud to serve the communities other brands overlook.

Cafecito Community Presence

Every pin is a community Cafecito calls home. Tap one to meet your neighbors.

Community Presence · illustrative
53.6MAmericans live in USDA food-desert tracts¹
87%of Cafecito locations sit in low-access areas (illustrative)
~67%of early-month SNAP benefits spent in the first 4 days²
1 in 3of our customers pays with SNAP. We’re honored to accept them.

Why we go where we go

That’s not a market gap. That’s a calling.

Where incomes are lowest, the need for an affordable cup is highest. Where the grocery store left, we arrived. We don’t wait for a neighborhood to be ready for us. We help make it ready.

GE

A note from leadership

“People ask why we invest where others won’t. Those places are full of families who deserve a warm cup as much as anyone. (They’re also, frankly, where the real estate makes sense.) We’re not here to gentrify. We’re here to stay — at least as long as the numbers do.”

Gauge Ellison · Chief Officer of Community Outreach & Real Estate Acquisitions

A partnership with the people

We build around the benefit calendar.

Cafecito proudly accepts SNAP/EBT at every location — and we plan inventory, staffing, and promotions to the federal benefit calendar. The first of the month is our highest-volume window.² When the government invests in a family, we make sure that family invests in us.

How we measure community. Cafecito’s “community presence” shown above is illustrative. The underlying community indicators are drawn from public datasets: ¹ USDA Food Access Research Atlas (low-income / low-access tracts — “53.6 million people, or 17.4 percent of the U.S. population”); U.S. Census ACS tables S1701 & B19013 (poverty & median household income by tract); and ² USDA SNAP spending patterns (ERS Amber Waves; Hastings & Shapiro, AER 2018). Patterns of discount-retail siting in low-income communities are documented by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.
CAFECITO CACACITO
A Cafecito community storefront. Signage occasionally requires touch-ups.

Coming to a corner near you

See if Cafecito is coming to your community.