As we’ve talked about before at Raj’s Coffee, one of the big trends in coffee shops right now is hybrid spaces. A coffee shop that doubles as another sort of place. Take The Understudy, a coffee shop that also houses a theater bookstore. Or Heritage Bikes, which has both a café and a bicycle shop. It’s been fascinating to watch this trend play out here in Chicago. But to this list we have to add a rather strange café. And that is the Capital One Café.
You heard us right. Capital One, the massive banking institution, has several coffee shops open around the United States. In these cafés, you can grab a latte and check in on your Capital One accounts at the same stop. There are ATMs, and you can also find Capital One representatives ready to help you with all your banking needs. This sort of hyper-corporate hybrid café space is, in a lot of respects, a far cry from the small, independent hybrid cafés we’ve seen before. But it also feels startlingly similar. So what exactly is the deal with the Capital One Café?
The Concept
If you head over to Capital One’s website, you can find a page for FAQ’s about their cafés. In the business’s own words,
“A Capital One Café is part bank, part café–all in one convenient and welcoming space. Come in for everyday banking, in-person support from Ambassadors and handcrafted beverages from Verve Coffee Roasters. The Café offers free WiFi and comfortable spaces for working, meeting or taking a break. Plus most of our locations have extended and weekend hours to support some of your banking needs. You can even work toward your money goals with free events, workshops and one-on-one Money & Life mentoring. Visit any of our 60+ locations nationwide whether you bank with us or not. Everyone’s welcome.”
There’s a lot going on here in this mission statement, so let’s unpack it.
In some respects, these cafés share a lot in common with small, independent coffee shops. They offer coffee, tea, smoothies, and baked goods. There’s also a small helping of pre-packaged snacks and even a few sandwiches you can order. Like a lot of small shops, the coffee is sourced from a larger roaster. In this case, that roaster is Verve, a California-based roaster that’s been around since 2007. Their retail locations are only in California and Japan, but they clearly have a large wholesale reach. And it appears that their partnership with Capital One means that all of their cafés carries Verve coffee.
Additionally, each café offers a range of seating options and in-store WiFi. They do, in fact, keep fairly typical coffee shop hours. At the Chicago – Southport location, for example, they’re open from 7:00 am – 7:00 pm on weekdays with shorter hours on the weekends.
Card-Holding Privilege
But that’s where a lot of the similarities stop. Let’s take the obvious part. Each café is also a place where you can bank. Each day you will find representatives from Capital One – Ambassadors, they call them – who are there to ask banking-related questions for any customer. There are ATMs you can access. And while the café is not a full-service banking location for Capital One, they do advertise themselves as a place where a customer can easily kill two birds with one stone. Grab a coffee and interface with your bank. You can even open a new account at a café.
Although the cafés say, per the Capital One website, that “everyone is welcome” and that “they’re truly a community space,” it’s obvious that Capital One account holders get special treatment. All handcrafted beverages are 50% off if you pay with one of their cards. This means that all lattes, flavored lattes, and seasonal specialty drinks are half off if you happen to have an account with Capital One.
The cafés also have work carrels, small compartments with sliding doors where folks can work in a slightly more private atmosphere. But you can only reserve these carrels if you have a Capital One account. So even some of the physical space in the cafés is barred for non-account holders.
Corporate and Clean
This brings us to the interior. The cafés all have a very clean, modern, corporate feeling to the layout and decor. It can feel very stark, in keeping with the idea that these spaces double as banks. At the Chicago – Southport location, where I’ve spent the most time, there is a lot of wide open space and even two floors. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find an independent coffee shop with this much square footage.
I’d go far as to say that the Capital One Café has an uncanny feeling to it. Because it resembles other coffee shops so well in its menu option and mixed-use seating, you can come inside and treat the experience as you would any other café. But it’s also impossible to avoid how overtly corporate the whole place is, especially in the design and branding.
What Does It Mean for Coffee Shops?
What does it mean for the café scene when a large corporate institution like Capital One can co-opt and mimic the American coffee shop experience with so much success? After all, as of the date of this posting, the company runs a whopping 62 locations around the country. It boasts seasonal specialty menus and coffee sourced from a large third-wave roaster. Obviously some of this success can be attributed to Capital One’s massive wealth. Their ability to buy up shops and open their own location at such a scale is not possible for companies coming from the independent, craft coffee scene.
But I think it also has something to do with the sheer popularity of coffee shops. Here in the United States at least, coffee shops are widely popular and accessible third spaces. In the years since the COVID-19 lockdowns and a large move to remote/hybrid work, more and more people are looking to coffee shops to provide a setting outside of home to conduct business. Plus, coffee’s popularity in general shows no signs of slowing down.
The Capital One Café certainly succeeds as a coffee shop on its own merits. Its coffee, tea, and food are fairly tasty, and if you happen to be a Capital One account-holder, you have a lot of incentive to come here. But I don’t think this sort of hyper-corporate coffee shop is ever going to totally match the experience of a small, independent café. It’s a little too astroturfed to have much character or uniqueness. People still yearn enough for those things that I don’t think Capital One will crowd these places out any time soon.
Our Recommendation
So unless you happen to bank with this company and live in a city with a café, I don’t think you’re missing out on too much by not visiting. When in doubt, stick to your local coffee shop, not only to support a small business, but to enjoy something that can’t be so easily replicated somewhere else.