The chain’s latest announcement puts its Kuwait network 57 locations above the total reported in May 2024, with branches extending from malls to hospitals and office buildings.
The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has announced the opening of its 130th café in Kuwait, taking its network well beyond the 100-location target it had previously set for 2025.
The milestone was disclosed in a 22 September announcement by Jollibee Group. The brand’s Kuwait operation is run by Al-Ghunaim Trading Co. and employs more than 1,135 people across cafés, operations and support functions, according to the statement.
The announcement marks more than two decades since the chain opened its first Kuwait café in Salmiya on 16 December 2004.
A larger network in just over two years
The most useful measure of the expansion comes from the company’s earlier figures. In May 2024, Jollibee reported 73 Coffee Bean cafés in Kuwait and said the business was looking to reach 100 by 2025.
The new total is 57 higher, equivalent to an increase of approximately 78% between the two announcements. It also puts the chain 30 locations above that earlier target.
These are comparisons of reported network totals, rather than a count of every new opening during the period. The disclosures do not provide a branch-by-branch account of openings and closures, or establish exactly when the 100-café threshold was passed.
They do, however, show the scale of the change. A customer who last followed the chain’s expansion in 2024 is now looking at a substantially larger Kuwait network.
Beyond the shopping mall
The locations help explain what that network looks like on the ground. Coffee Bean’s Kuwait directory lists branches at shopping destinations including 360 Mall, Al Hamra Mall and Arraya Center, alongside office addresses such as Kipco Tower and Baitak Tower.
Hospitals also feature, with listed locations at Jaber Al Ahmad Hospital, Al-Salam Hospital and London Hospital in Fintas. Other entries include KNPC premises, Trolley locations and the Gulf Road site beside Green Island.
That variety is a more concrete picture of the chain’s presence than the headline branch count alone. Its listed locations span places people visit to shop, work or attend appointments, as well as neighbourhood stops. The directory also links to ordering services including Deliveroo, Talabat and V Thru.
The location list does not give sales by branch or identify which formats account for the latest growth. It therefore cannot establish whether malls, offices or other settings are performing best. What it does show is how widely the brand has spread across different types of destination.
What the announcement says about the next stage
Al-Ghunaim CEO Mishary Al-Ghunaim credited customers and employees in the milestone statement. The partners said their next phase would include investment in people, innovation and operations.
They did not set out another numerical Kuwait expansion target or a timetable for the next group of openings in the announcement.
For now, the clearest development is the size of the existing network: 130 cafés, compared with 73 reported in May 2024. From a first branch in Salmiya, Coffee Bean has become a presence across a much broader range of Kuwait addresses.
