Sales grow at Black Rock Coffee Bar, despite some bad weather

Poor January weather and new stores slowed sales at Black Rock Coffee Bar but didn’t quite stop them.

The Scottsdale, Arizona-based chain said same-store sales rose 5.2% in the first quarter, or 14.4% on a two-year basis. That came despite some tough January weather that hurt that key metric by 0.6%.

New stores hurt, too. A “strategic densification” in the Phoenix market, the company’s biggest, resulted in a 160-basis-point headwind to same-store sales as customers shifted business to new stores from existing locations.

“We had really good opportunities,” Rodd Booth, Black Rock’s chief financial officer, told investors on Tuesday. “They were within five miles of some existing stores. It’s really a way to grow within Phoenix. We like the sites very much.”

Revenue at the company increased 23.7% to $55.5 million. Net income quadrupled to $1.8 million, or 2 cents per share. Adjusted EBITDA, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, grew 23.5% to $7.4 million. Traffic to the chain’s shops declined 0.6%.

Black Rock generates strong profitability on a per-store basis. Store-level profit margin was 29.6% of sales in the quarter, the company said. That’s one of the strongest margin results among publicly traded restaurant chains.

The coffee shop chain, which went public last year, operates 190 locations, after opening nine in the first quarter. The company gets 55% of its sales through coffee and 25% of its sales from energy drinks, company executives said. Food, which like energy drinks is a growing channel for the chain, represents 13% of sales. Digital sales now represent 17% of sales.

Mark Davis, the company’s CEO, told analysts on Tuesday that the company’s customers skew higher income. He said the economy, and competition, has not really hurt the chain’s results, suggesting that weather and new stores held sales back.

“We have not seen a slowing of momentum whatsoever,” Davis said. He said the company also didn't feel any impact at the chain’s Colorado stores when McDonald’s tested energy beverages there in the fall.

Black Rock generated $200 million in system sales in 2025, according to data from Restaurant Business sibling company Technomic. That was up 24.5% compared with a year earlier.

The company has had a tough introduction to the public markets despite generally strong sales, due in part to some issues with delays on new unit openings. Its stock price is down 50% so far this year and 59% since the IPO. Black Rock has set a plan to get to 1,000 locations by 2035.