While Chick-fil-A is best known for staying true to its brand by maintaining its Southern-style hospitality and offering its iconic chicken sandwiches and waffle fries, the popular chain has been increasingly experimenting with new menu items to keep up with evolving consumer trends.

This approach is working in its favor. Nearly 80 years after its founding, Chick-fil-A was again named the top quick-service restaurant for the 11th consecutive year, earning a steady score of 83 in the American Customer Satisfaction Index, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index‘s 2025 Restaurant and Food Delivery Study.

Following the growing beverage trend, Chick-fil-A introduced four new Cherry Berry beverages, marking its first seasonal soda flavor, and launched the limited-time Icedream Spins and Icedream Floats in March.

However, Chick-fil-A isn’t stopping there. It’s now leveraging this high-demand trend to launch an entirely new business.

This fall, Chick-fil-A, through its subsidiary Red Wagon Ventures LLC, plans to open Daybright, a beverage-focused concept in Hiram, a small city near Atlanta, Georgia.

Daybright will serve a variety of drinks, including specialty coffees, smoothies, and cold-press juices, along with food offerings. As the concept operates independently, the menu will not feature any of Chick-fil-A’s core menu items.

Chick-fil-A to open Daybright, a new beverage-focused concept restaurant.

Image Source: Shutterstock

Starbucks faces increased competition from smaller beverage-focused chains

While Starbucks  (SBUX)  has long dominated the coffee and beverage market, smaller chains are starting to chip away at its market share. 

In the first quarter of 2025, Dutch Bros.  (BROS)  saw a 13.4% increase in traffic, Scooter’s Coffee grew by 15.3%, and 7 Brew Coffee reported an impressive 87.3% surge, according to Placer.ai. In contrast, Starbucks experienced a nearly 1% decline in store traffic compared to the previous year.

Starbucks challenges continued in the third quarter of 2025, with comparable store sales declining 2%, driven by a 4% drop in transactions.

Related: World’s largest fast-food chain coming to U.S. take on McDonald’s

Despite these setbacks, Starbucks remains the dominant coffee giant, getting more foot traffic than its competitors, thanks to its global footprint of 38,000 locations in over 100 countries. 

While Chick-fil-A operates around 3,100 restaurants nationwide, a fraction of Starbucks’ locations, the new Daybright venture could expand its influence and attract more customers with its new shops.

Fast-food chains embrace the beverage trend

Chick-fil-A isn’t alone in capitalizing on the rising demand for beverages.

McDonald’s launched CosMc’s in 2023, opening its first location in Illinois as a test concept. Due to its strong demand, the spinoff expanded to five more locations in Illinois and Texas. 

CosMc’s was a space-themed café offering uniquely crafted beverages, including coffee, frappés, iced teas, lemonades, and energy drinks. It also had breakfast items, baked goods, snacks, and soft-serve ice cream.

In May 2025, McDonald’s closed all its CosMc’s locations and deactivated the associated app in June. But the experiment wasn’t wasted.

By testing innovative offerings and learning from the operational processes through CosMc’s, McDonald’s gathered valuable insights, which helped it roll out a new nationwide beverage menu in select markets. 

Those efforts are already showing results, with U.S. comparable sales increasing 2.5% year-over-year in the second quarter of fiscal 2025.

Yum! Brands’  (YUM)  Taco Bell has also jumped on the beverage trend by opening the first-ever Taco Bell Live Más Café in Chula Vista, California. This café offers milkshakes, iced and hot coffee, fruity drinks, and fizzy sodas.

Recently, the chain revealed plans to open 30 more Live Más Cafés within existing Taco Bell locations nationwide by the end of 2025 and has begun adding new beverages to its core Taco Bell menu.

These moves continue to boost Taco Bell’s growth, helping it achieve a 4% increase in same-store sales in the second quarter of fiscal 2025.

Related: Chick-fil-A to open its first global restaurants in 2025