China’s biggest coffee chain isn’t trying to be your third place. China’s biggest coffee chain just opened stores in the U.S. for the first time. Its business model is the antithesis of Starbucks’s “back to basics” plan.

Luckin Coffee was founded in 2017 and is based in Xiamen, China. Since its inception, the company has expanded to over 20,000 locations across Singapore, Malaysia and China, where it unseated Starbucks in 2023 to become the largest coffee chain brand in the country.

Luckin Coffee opened its first US location, offering pineapple and coconut coffees. But customers were lured in by something other than flavors.