The Moscow-based casual-dining group is planning to turn at least 10 of its 26 former Costa Coffee sites into Lalibela Coffee stores this year following the UK coffee chain’s exit from Russia in 2022
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A Costa Coffee kiosk at the Aviapark Mall shopping centre in Moscow in 2022 | Photo credit: Svetlov Artem CC BY 4.0
Russia’s Rosinter Restaurants Holding has begun developing a new chain of coffee shops – Lalibela Coffee – that will take over its former Costa Coffee franchise stores.
Moscow-based Rosinter entered a joint venture with Costa Coffee in December 2007 and opened its first franchised store in the Russian capital in March 2008. The casual dining group outlined a goal of opening 200 Costa Coffee stores in Russia within the first five years of the partnership with a focus on Moscow and St Petersburg.
However, the partnership only reached 32 stores at its peak in 2018 but had shrunk to 26 sites by March 2022, when Costa Coffee’s parent company Coca-Cola announced it would exit the market in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Casual-dining group Rosinter opened its first Lalibela Coffee store on the site of a former Costa Coffee in the Aviapark Mall shopping centre in Moscow on 16 March 2024. Rosinter plans to open 10 further pilot outlets this year before assessing whether to scale the concept in 2025, according to a company statement.
The chain is being developed with Smolensk-based coffee roaster Lalibela Coffee, which distributes packaged ground coffee to retail chains, hotels, restaurants and cafés across Russia. In November 2022, Lalibela Coffee acquired Olam International’s instant coffee packaging plant in Yakhroma after the agri-business ceased operations in the country.
Rosinter is one of Russia’s largest casual dining groups with more than 200 outlets across 30 cities. Alongside franchised TGI Fridays stores, the business operates its proprietary IL Patio, Planet Sushi, Shikari, American Bar and Grill and Mama Russia brands.