Fast Food’s Next Battleground Isn’t Food: Why Chains Are Opening Cafes Built Around Specialty Drinks
Three major chains are proving that specialty beverages can drive traffic even when customers aren't ordering food.
The next time you search for “cafes near me”, don’t be surprised if a Taco Bell pops up. Fast food restaurants are going all in on drinks and beverages, turning what used to be a side order into the main event.
Starbucks already proved that specialty drinks can drive entire visits on their own. Now chains like Taco Bell, Chick-fil-A and McDonald’s are racing to build their own version of that model.
The formats look different. The goal is the same: get you through the door when you’re not even hungry.
Taco Bell’s Live Más Café is turning drive-thrus into drink destinations
Taco Bell opened its first Live Más Café in Chula Vista, California in December 2024. The concept adds a specialty-drink counter and dedicated “Bellristas” inside an otherwise standard Taco Bell.
It’s growing fast. The café expanded to 31 locations by the end of 2025 and reached 38 restaurants by April 2026.
The menu includes more than 20 handcrafted drinks: Refrescas, coffees, energy drinks, chillers and frozen beverages. Taco Bell describes it as a “playground for beverage innovation” where they test new drinks before potentially going chainwide.
The numbers tell an interesting story. Live Más Café locations sell about 25% more beverages than standard Taco Bells. Even more telling, 43% of sales from specialty beverages are standalone orders with no food attached.
Think about that. Nearly half of these drink orders are the visit. Not an add-on. The destination.
“Live Más Café was created in response to what we’re seeing from Gen Z, a real cultural shift where beverages are becoming lifestyle drivers,” Taco Bell global chief brand officer Taylor Montgomery told Restaurant Dive.
Chick-fil-A’s beverage concept Daybright takes a standalone approach
Chick-fil-A isn’t adding a drink counter to existing stores. It’s building something entirely separate.
Its subsidiary Red Wagon Ventures opened the first Daybright Coffee and Refreshment in Hiram, Georgia in October 2025. No chicken sandwiches. No Chick-fil-A branding on the menu.
Instead Daybright serves cold brew, lattes, protein coffee, iced teas, lemonades, sparkling fruit “Fizzes,” smoothies and cold-pressed juices. There’s also a smaller menu of grab-and-go food, a full dining room and a dual-lane drive-thru.
“With schedules busier than ever, we know people are looking for easy, convenient ways to enjoy quality food and beverages,” Red Wagon Ventures vice president David Farmer told Restaurant Dive. “Daybright is designed with this in mind, offering delicious beverages and portable bites intended to delight customers and help boost their busy days.”
As of August 2026 Daybright still has just one location. That makes it a much earlier-stage experiment than Taco Bell’s rapidly expanding café model. But the ambition is clear: build a drinks-first brand from scratch.
What CosMc’s taught McDonald’s about specialty drinks
McDonald’s took the boldest swing and pulled back the fastest.
The company opened the first CosMc’s in Bolingbrook, Illinois in December 2023. The concept was built around customizable coffees, refreshers, lemonades, energy drinks and add-ins like popping boba and flavor syrups.
McDonald’s originally planned roughly 10 pilot locations across Illinois and Texas but never hit that number. When the company shut down CosMc’s in 2025, five locations remained.
McDonald’s didn’t frame the closure as a failure though. It called CosMc’s a “Learning Lab” for testing bold flavors, technology and restaurant processes.
Those lessons went straight into the core business. CosMc’s-inspired drinks were tested at more than 500 McDonald’s locations in Wisconsin, Colorado and surrounding markets later in 2025.
The takeaway was clear: many of CosMc’s best beverage ideas didn’t need a separate brand. They could live inside a regular McDonald’s.
Specialty drinks and beverages are becoming the reason to visit
Starbucks has already shown what this model looks like at scale.
The company says traffic is growing after 2 p.m., with its biggest gains between 3 and 5 p.m. Customers are stopping in for cold drinks well outside the traditional morning coffee window.
Refreshers are a huge part of that shift. Starbucks says the platform is now worth $2 billion in U.S. company-operated stores, making it the chain’s second-largest beverage platform behind espresso.
Taco Bell, Chick-fil-A and McDonald’s are all chasing the same opportunity. Taco Bell is scaling drinks inside existing restaurants. Chick-fil-A is testing a separate destination. McDonald’s decided specialty beverages work best within its current footprint.
The common thread is that every one of these chains is building new visits that aren’t centered on a meal. The draw is a refresher, a cold brew, an energy drink or some other customizable beverage.
For the generation that turned a drink run into a social ritual, that shift makes perfect sense.
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