In light of the coffee chain expanding to the UWS, I tried one of their downtown locations. Here’s what I thought.

A new coffee chain is set to arrive on the Upper West Side. Luckin Coffee, the leading coffee company in China is opening a new location at 2799 Broadway, next to Fumo.

Last week, as I joyously celebrated the start of spring break by window-shopping in the Greenwich Village, I decided to pop into the Luckin Coffee on 8th St and Broadway ahead of their UWS debut.

Having read a little bit about the company online beforehand, I knew to place my order through their app. In contrast to the many coffeehouses that focus on cultivating a “community feel” by investing in comfortable chairs and adopting laptop bans to encourage customers to hang out and interact, Luckin embraces a mobile-only, grab-n-go ethos. Personally, I found the app easy to navigate and liked that it gave me more time to decide what to order. However, I am concerned about the moral cost of further automation in the food and beverage industry: if cafes and restaurants continue to adopt similar models, how many more service jobs will we lose in the next five-to-ten years? I have no idea.

Ethical concerns aside, I went with an iced Spanish latte because I wanted to try something new and was intrigued by its three different milks, advertised on the app as “creamy milk,” a “signature milk base,” and sweetened condensed milk. While I don’t know what’s in the former two, I really enjoyed the texture they gave the drink. I have no previous Spanish latte experience to base my opinion off of, but comparing it to my usual coffee order—an iced latte with oat milk—this was slightly thicker, smoother, and also sweeter. Overall, I’d rate the drink a strong 9/10.

The best part about it, however, was the price. Tax included, my order came to less than $3. The rumors I’d read online were true: the app really does shower new customers with coupons, like my 60% off one, to entice us to keep coming back. And, as a broke college student in a city where a specialty coffee averages around $7-10, I might have to.

According to Google Maps, Luckin’s UWS location is set to open in just over two weeks on April 11, 2026. With the coffee chain rapidly expanding across New York City, only time will tell if it’ll be as huge a success as it is in the Eastern Hemisphere.

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