Shopping malls in Mexico are welcoming a new kind of tenant: ultralight coffee. With minimal setups, prices nearly half those of the competition, and a high-rotation model, companies like Sede Café and Pickup Coffee are making their way through the corridors of Mexican retail.

By the end of 2024, Sede and Pickup had eight and 25 locations, respectively, in Mexico City and its metro area. Today, they operate 20 and 32, including three kiosks in shopping malls: one from Sede, just four square meters in City Shops del Valle; and two from Pickup, one 13 square meters in Gran Terraza Coapa and another 10 in Pabellón Cuauhtémoc.

Their presence signals more than just rapid expansion with minimal physical footprint and maximum transactional efficiency. They revive the logic of a sector dominated by giants like Starbucks and Garat, using a strategy tested by brands aiming to become chains: to democratize the aspirational. In other words, to offer desirable products at low prices with a strong brand identity. And in a saturated and expensive market, that’s the only viable path to scale and compete for space.

Brands like Starbucks once played a democratizing role: they brought specialty coffee to the mass market and turned the experience into a label. Today they operate as conglomerates that set prices and dictate trends—but it wasn’t always like that.

Like them, other brands are trying to break through: some from the ground up, others backed by foreign investors or venture capital willing to bet on them.

According to data from SiiLA Market Analytics, at least 16 ultralight coffee brands have an exclusive presence in kiosks within shopping malls, collectively occupying just about 160 square meters of gross leasable area in key markets like Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey. Several also operate outside malls, in standalone spots where they test expansion and commercial viability.

But this model isn’t exclusive to coffee. According to SiiLA, roughly 15% of shopping mall tenants in Mexico operate exclusively in kiosks, a format that not only empowers democratizing brands but also serves as an entry platform for micro and small businesses that don’t require—or can’t afford—a traditional storefront.

Even so, kiosk-only brands account for just 0.2% of occupied retail space in malls. This mismatch between tenant share and space share reveals more than efficiency: it confirms that mall presence is, above all, a matter of traction. In that sense, an academic study conducted by researchers from HKUST, Cambridge, KAIST, and UChicago —presented at the ASONAM 2022 international conference— found that foot traffic toward retail stores inside malls can increase by 14% to 26% simply by sharing space with an anchor store.

Today, lesser-known but equally ambitious brands like Sede and Pickup are expanding through Mexico’s retail corridors. And their growth carries a warning.

The fact that Sede was born from the drive of two students from ITAM—a prestigious Mexican university—and Pickup is a conglomerate with over 320 outlets in Asia, is more than a footnote: it marks a turning point. Mexico is no longer just importing replicable models; it’s finally starting to produce its own. And if the national retail sector wants to be more than just a consumer market, it will need brands capable of building local industries with their own value chains—not just points of sale.

Want to learn more about the formats, tenants, and trends reshaping retail in Mexico? Visit SiiLA REsource or email us at contacto@siila.com.mx.