Taiwanese food and beverage chain La Kaffa International Co (六角國際) has opened a flagship outlet in New York, making it the first listed Taiwanese business to expand in the US city.
The New York outlet, which was launched at the weekend, offers beverages under La Kaffa’s Chatime brand, fried pork dishes under its Wagokoro Tonkatsu Anzu Ginza brand and bread under its Bake Code brand.
In addition to those three brands, La Kaffa owns four others in Taiwan — Chatime Coffee, ZenQ deserts, the Chatime Lounge restaurant chain and Tuan Chun-zhen Beef Noodles.
Photo: Yang Ya-min, Taipei Times
La Kaffa said its New York store, located in Flushing Chinatown in Queens, offers ethnic Asian consumers a taste of popular Asian cuisine.
The company said it has set an initial revenue goal for the New York store that would triple the amount made at any of its outlets in Taiwan.
La Kaffa said it expects to gain greater visibility in the US market with the opening of its New York outlet and will continue to expand its operations in the US.
The company first entered the US market in 2011, setting up a Chatime beverage store on the west coast, and now also has two Bake Code stores in California.
La Kaffa chairman Henry Wang (王耀輝) said he hoped the US market would eventually account for about 30 percent of the company’s total revenue.
Headquartered in Hsinchu, La Kaffa started out as a coffee shop that later began selling bubble milk tea and established the popular Chatime brand.
The company said it now has outlets in more than 80 cities in 29 countries and regions, including Australia and Southeast Asia, where Chatime has become a popular beverage brand.
In ASEAN markets, where the company has more than 150 outlets, it rakes in about 30 percent of its total sales, La Kaffa said.
In the first seven months of the year, La Kaffa posted NT$1.15 billion (US$36.16 million) in consolidated sales, representing a 28.4 percent increase from a year earlier.
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