How to open a café in Nepal, step by step

Nepal is warming to coffee: the founder of an 84-outlet Nepali coffee chain estimates there are about 7,000 cafés across the country (AP, 2025), and the Kathmandu Valley alone has about 15,000 restaurants and cafés (Kathmandu Post, 2024). A new one needs a reason to be chosen, so say in one sentence who it is for and why they will come.

Decide, too, how much of it is coffee. A coffee-first café lives on its espresso machine and its barista; a café-restaurant earns more from food and needs a proper kitchen; a bakery café needs ovens and early mornings. The choice sets your equipment, your staff and the space you need.

Then your own brand or a franchise. A franchise brings a known name and its methods, at a price: a franchise consultancy puts one Nepali chain's express café at Rs 35 lakh for a complete setup (2026), and a franchise café and gallery in Kathmandu cost Rs 1.8 crore, with a sizeable fee for the franchise (Ratopati, 2026).

Published examples of what cafés cost to open run from Rs 8 lakh for a café in Kathmandu's Budhanagar to about Rs 42 lakh for one in Tinkune (both 2022). Rent, location and fit-out make most of the difference.

Before you commit, write a short business plan: what you will spend, what a month costs to run, and how many cups and plates a day you need to sell to cover it. Keep money in reserve for the months before the café pays its way; one Kathmandu firm's franchise checklist suggests six months of working capital.

Cafés live on footfall and on people who stay: students, office workers, friends meeting. Visit a likely street at breakfast, at lunch and in the evening, and count who walks past and where they go in.

In Kathmandu, a shop in a prime commercial area rents for at least Rs 40,000 a month and a decent-sized shop in Thamel for Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 lakh, and rents had been rising about 10% a year (Kathmandu Post, 2023). Landlords usually ask for one to three months' rent in advance; some commercial leases ask for six.

Get the lease in writing. In Kathmandu Metropolitan City a written rental agreement is mandatory, and the landlord must report the tenancy to the ward office within seven days. Check that the space may be used as a café: when restaurants were banned from basements, some outlets had to close.

The paperwork is the same as for a restaurant, and the fees are small next to rent and equipment. The order differs from place to place, so ask your municipality what it needs first.

In a coffee café, the espresso machine and the grinder do most of the work, and the grinder matters as much as the machine. The rest, from a fridge for milk to a water filter, a blender for cold drinks, cups, tables and chairs, depends on your menu and your space. Prices Kathmandu sellers listed in 2026:

Most coffee drunk in Nepal is imported. The country grew 641.9 tonnes in 2024/25, double the 314.5 tonnes of 2020/21, against demand of more than 2,800 tonnes a year (National Tea and Coffee Development Board, via Onlinekhabar, 2026). In the first nine months of 2025/26, Nepal imported Rs 1.85 billion worth of coffee and coffee products, most of it instant coffee.

Nepali coffee costs more, and is a story worth telling on your menu: green Nepali beans sell for Rs 1,600 to Rs 1,700 a kilo, against Rs 1,200 to Rs 1,300 for coffee imported from India (2026). Ask several roasters for samples, taste them as espresso and with milk, and ask how fresh each roast will be and how reliably they can supply you.

A good barista makes a coffee café. Short courses in the Kathmandu Valley cost Rs 18,000 for a month of CTEVT-accredited training at one Kathmandu centre, and Rs 18,000 to Rs 30,000 for 18 days to a month at a Lalitpur school (2026). Taking a course yourself helps you judge the people you hire.

Nepal's minimum wage is Rs 19,550 a month, and employers add 20% of each worker's basic salary to the Social Security Fund. Enrol your staff: employers who don't can be refused renewal of their licence.

Work out what each drink costs you to make. For the latte below, the coffee, milk and cup come to Rs 84; at Rs 250 on the menu that is 34% of the price, at the top of the 25% to 35% of sales that most restaurants spend on ingredients (ChowNow, 2025).

Prices vary widely: at one big Nepali coffee chain a cup costs about $2, as much as five cups of tea (AP, 2025). Charge what your street and your coffee support, and build your staff costs into the price: since January 2023, when the Supreme Court ruled that no one can add a service charge to a customer's bill, there is no 10% on top.

Open softly first: a few days for friends and neighbours, to settle the workflow before the public arrives.

Put the café on Google Maps with a Google Business Profile, with photos, opening hours and a phone number, and ask happy guests for reviews. Delivery apps bring orders but take a significant commission (Business 360, 2025), so price what you sell through them with that in mind.

Then keep watching the numbers: cups sold, the average bill and costs each week, against your plan.