Get ready, America – here come China's F&B chains

Chinese food and drink brands are popping up in US cities despite geopolitical tensions

- Daisuke Wakabayashi and Joy Dong

The economic relationship between the US and China is as fraught as it has been in recent memory, but that has not stopped a wave of Chinese food and beverage (F&B) chains from moving aggressively into the US for the first time.

Chinese tea shops in New York and Los Angeles are offering consumers drinks topped with a milk or cheese foam. Fried chicken sandwich joints are trying to lure diners in California with affordable fast food. Restaurant and drink brands, some with thousands of stores in China, are taking root in American cities to escape punishing competition at home.

Heytea, a tea chain originating in Jiangmen, a city in southern China, has opened three dozen stores nationwide in the US since 2023, including a flagship operation in Times Square in New York.

Two other rival tea brands, Chagee and Naisnow, opened their first US stores in 2025. Luckin Coffee, a chain with three outlets for every one Starbucks in China, opened several spots across Manhattan.

Wallace, one of China’s largest fast-food chains with more than 20,000 stores selling fried chicken and hamburgers, landed in Walnut, California, for its first shop. Haidilao, China’s largest hotpot chain, is redoubling its efforts in the US after entering the market more than a decade ago.

The American expansion comes at a challenging moment for China's F&B industry. The Chinese economy is no longer growing at a breakneck pace, hampered by a long-running real estate crisis and sluggish consumer spending.

To survive, restaurant chains are undercutting one another on prices, inciting an unsustainable, profit-killing race to the bottom.