The Manufaktura The Coffee Shop Restaurant chain, which offers a combination of coffee shop, bistro and restaurant, founded by businessman Octavian Muntean, will expand with at least three more new establishments in 2025, both in Bucharest and in other cities in the country. Manufaktura took its first step outside of Bucharest in 2018, in Timisoara, but closed its two cafes there as a result of the pandemic’s effect on the business. Now, the company is resuming expansion outside Bucharest, with Iași being targeted in the first phase. Manufaktura currently has eight locations in Bucharest, in two formats – Manufaktura The Coffee Shop and Manufaktura The Coffe Shop Restaurant – as well as a pop-up store, integrated into the Casual Bistro in the Mega Image Băneasa concept store. “For next year we have three confirmed openings planned with Prime Kapital and we are also in negotiations with other major developers. One opening is in Iași Mall Moldova and two in Bucharest, in DN1 Value Center and Militari Shopping Center. The focus is on Bucharest, but we are also in talks to expand to other cities. We also plan to launch the franchise project in 2025. In principle, we are in no hurry. Our strategy is more of a strategy of small steps, we are growing organically and we are not going to jump into a rapid expansion without a well-defined plan. Of course we are targeting big cities first and foremost, because our positioning is in the premium coffee shop and premium location segment, but we are not just a coffee shop. We try to cover all the three main consumption moments of the day, i.e. breakfast, lunch and dinner, and the red thread is, of course, the coffee, which goes through all these three consumption moments,” Octavian Muntean, founder of Manufaktura, told Profit.ro, adding that the next three units will be opened under The CoffeeShop format. The investment budget for 2025 is estimated at around €2 million, money that will go both into opening new units and renovating the current ones. For 2024, Octavian Muntean estimates a turnover of around EUR 4.6m, up from 2023, when the company recorded a turnover of almost EUR 3.8m, and for 2025 he expects sales to increase by 20-25% without the new openings, and with the new openings the increase could be as much as 50%, depending on when the new coffee shops open. Profitability in 2024 will be around 3%. Rents account for between 15% and 25% of turnover, and ideally 10-15%, he adds. About 60% of the business’ turnover is coffee sales.
Manufaktura The Coffee Shop to expand with at least three new units in 2025
