Houston is now home to the first store in the United States to combine Taiwan's Chatime bubble tea with Sunny Up pudding sponge cakes and Taiwanese fried chicken under one roof, as parent company La Kaffa International inaugurated its debut dual-brand, directly-operated location on September 12. The store marks La Kaffa's first dual-brand flagship outside Taiwan and signals a shift in strategy for a company that has largely grown through franchising up to this point.
According to finance.biggo.com, the Houston opening represents a strategic shift from pure franchising toward directly-operated, dual-brand showcase stores designed to boost average transaction value by bundling drinks with snacks. The same report notes that La Kaffa executive Wang Yao-Hui said Texas's central location offers advantages for cross-state supply chain management and store expansion, a factor the company is counting on as it grows its American footprint. La Kaffa currently operates in 13 U.S. states, including stores in New York, Maryland, California, Las Vegas, and Texas, and even counts seven Walmart locations among its outposts, the outlet reports.
A Bigger Bet on the Lone Star State
Texas isn't a random pick for La Kaffa's flagship experiment. The outlet's report frames the state as the second-largest U.S. economy and one of the nation's most populous, with an industrial transformation driven by AI, semiconductors, and renewable energy that has fueled rapid population and business growth. That momentum, per the same account, is exactly why La Kaffa sees Texas as a critical hub for testing a model it hopes to eventually replicate across North America.
The Houston debut builds on ground La Kaffa's Chatime brand had already broken in the region. Chatime kicked off its suburban Greater Houston expansion in June 2025 with an opening at Tomball Crossing on State Highway 249, according to Chatime USA, where the brand offered opening incentives through its Loyal-Tea Rewards program. That suburban foothold set the stage for the company's more ambitious flagship push into the city proper this month.
Chasing 20 U.S. Stores and a Repeatable Playbook
La Kaffa expects to surpass 20 U.S. stores this year, and the Houston flagship is meant to double as a template — the company says it aims to establish a replicable North American brand operating model that strengthens direct brand management and product localization, per the biggo.com report. Beyond Houston, La Kaffa is also planning new stores in Las Vegas, Louisiana, and other regions this year as part of that broader rollout. Globally, Chatime has grown into a brand with roughly 1,400 stores and more than two decades of international presence, operating in 63 countries and regions, according to the same reporting.
Chatime's Texas growth has been building for a while beyond the Houston suburbs. As Hoodline previously reported, the chain opened a location at Dallas's Medallion Center in May 2026 following an earlier 2025 opening in Frisco, part of a local multi-unit development agreement to open 10 stores across North Texas. That North Texas push, combined with the Houston flagship, points to Texas becoming one of Chatime's most active U.S. growth markets this year.
Acquisitions Fueling the Expansion
La Kaffa's American ambitions are being underwritten by a string of acquisitions abroad. The company initiated acquisitions of Hanlin Tea Room and Germany BoBoQ, and it has said merger synergies from those two deals boosted profitability, per the biggo.com report. La Kaffa reported first-half earnings per share of NT$2.13, up from last year's full-year EPS of NT$1.09, the outlet notes.
Those numbers track with La Kaffa's broader financial trajectory. The company, listed on Taiwan's Taipei Exchange under the ticker 2732, posted full-year 2025 revenue of NT$4.30 billion, reflecting 7.13% year-over-year growth, according to Stock Analysis. La Kaffa's January 2025 acquisition of Tainan-based Hanlin Tea Room — which claims to have invented bubble tea in 1986 — cost roughly $8.23 million and brought 40 Taiwan stores and three U.S. franchised locations into the company's platform, as reported by TVBS World Taiwan. Months later, in December 2025, La Kaffa's board approved acquiring 100% equity in German bubble tea brand Germany BoBoQ GmbH for EUR 10 million, a deal representing 12.28% of La Kaffa's total assets, according to BigGo Finance.
What the Dual-Brand Format Brings to the Table
The Sunny Up half of the new Houston store carries its own track record back home. Before this U.S. debut, Sunny Up generated nearly NT$200 million in annual revenue across 14 stores in Taiwan, where it's known for pudding sponge cakes and souvenir treats, according to the brand's own official website. Pairing that dessert lineup with Chatime's boba menu and Taiwanese fried chicken gives Houston customers a bundled taste of Taiwanese food culture that La Kaffa hasn't offered together in the U.S. before.
The Houston flagship also lands amid a broader industry tailwind. Market research has projected the global bubble tea market to grow from $2 billion to $4.3 billion by 2027, with U.S. market valuation expected to double or triple, according to Nation's Restaurant News. La Kaffa has said it will continue expanding overseas market operations and deepen its international restaurant brand platform strategy, using the Houston dual-brand store as its North American operating model going forward.
