Coffee up, groceries down: how to keep your café regulars after a price rise

Groceries in Hungary got cheaper over the past year, while coffee and eating out got more expensive. According to September data from the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH), consumer prices rose by only 1.6% year on year. Over the same period, food prices excluding hospitality fell by 4.6%, restaurant meals rose by 5.8% and espresso by 6.6% (Telex, Index, both in Hungarian). Index's analysis notes that the rise in hospitality prices is "particularly striking" and "may already be slowing tourism demand".

If you run a café in Budapest or a university city, you can see this gap from behind the counter. Your guests see milk, pasta and chocolate getting cheaper at the supermarket, while their cappuccino costs more at your place. From there, it's a short step to "I'll just make one at home."

This article explains why a blanket discount is the wrong answer, and what to do instead so your regulars stay after a price rise.

What the numbers say about hospitality

The price gap is not about cafés being greedy. Costs in hospitality behave differently from supermarket shelves. Wages are rising fast: according to KSH, the average net wage in August was 10% higher than a year earlier, and real wages were up 8.6% (Telex). In a labour-intensive business like a café, this shows up directly in prices.

At the same time, the market is consolidating. According to a Pénzcentrum article from 15 October, Hungary had 45,026 commercial hospitality venues at the end of 2019 and 35,109 at the end of 2025, a drop of 22%. Meanwhile, an expert from Dining Guide says sector turnover grew by just 0.2% in the first eight months of 2026.

Two things follow from this:

• Guests have money, because real wages are rising. They are just more selective about where they spend it.

• The pie isn't growing. Fewer venues share roughly the same turnover, so the winners are the venues guests keep coming back to.

Why a blanket discount isn't the answer

The obvious reaction is to roll back prices or give everyone 10% off. Here is a worked example of what that costs.

Take a café with 120 guests a day spending 1,500 HUF on average. That is 180,000 HUF a day, or about 4.7 million HUF a month over 26 trading days. A 10% discount for everyone costs 18,000 HUF a day, or roughly 470,000 HUF a month. Most of that goes to guests who would have come anyway.

Now the other side. A regular who visits three times a week and spends 1,500 HUF each time brings in about 230,000 HUF a year. If the price rise drives away ten of them, that is about 2.3 million HUF a year. You may not even notice, because regulars don't complain. They just stop coming.

So the goal is not to be cheaper for everyone. It is to make coming back worth it for the people who do.

5 steps to keep your regulars after a price rise

1. Raise prices transparently, and not all at once

A 6.6% rise on a 900 HUF espresso is about 60 HUF. That's small, but guests still notice when it appears on the menu without a word. A better approach:

• Don't raise everything at once. Keep your best-selling "reference" items (espresso, cappuccino) stable, and let add-ons and specialty drinks carry the increase.

• Say why. A short note on the counter ("wages and supplier prices went up; here's how we're making it up to our regulars…") is more honest than silence.

2. Reward people who come back instead of discounting for everyone

A blanket discount goes to every guest. A loyalty programme goes only to returning ones. Even a simple "10th coffee free" scheme works out to 10% off, but you only pay for it after the tenth visit. And it costs you your ingredients and labour, not the full menu price.

Rewards that cost you little but feel valuable work even better:

• free plant milk or an extra shot for regulars,

• tiers (e.g. bronze, silver, gold) with more perks at the top,

• a free birthday coffee,

• a weekly challenge ("try our new seasonal drink and earn double points").

Paper stamp cards get lost, and you never know who is using them. A digital programme shows you who your best guests are and when they last visited. It also works in your guests' own language, which matters if many of your guests are international students or expats.

3. Prepaid credit with a bonus

An offer like "top up 10,000 HUF, get 11,000 HUF of credit" is a 9% discount, but only for guests who commit. You also get the cash up front. If 40 guests top up 10,000 HUF in a month, that's 400,000 HUF in advance. Prepaid credit also brings guests back, because "it's already paid for".

4. Fill quiet hours instead of cutting prices

Most cafés have dead hours, such as early afternoon. Instead of a general discount, make a targeted offer for those slots: "double points from 2 to 4 pm" or "afternoon coffee and cake deal". Send it straight to your regulars. You use your own channel instead of paid ads, and you fill hours when your staff are already on shift.

5. Measure who you're losing

The biggest risk of a price rise is that you can't see its effect. Daily turnover can stay flat even while some regulars drift away and walk-ins replace them. Track three numbers before and after the price change:

• returning guest rate (how many came at least twice in the last 30 days),

• visit frequency (how often a regular comes, on average),

• average ticket size.

If the returning rate drops, a targeted offer can still win those guests back before the habit breaks.

How Cheers helps

You don't need five separate systems for this. Cheers gives you gamified loyalty (tiers, challenges, cashback), prepaid credit with bonuses, QR ordering and targeted messages to your guests, all on one platform. The reports show who your best guests are and who has stopped coming. The guest app opens in each guest's phone language. Cheers is compatible with NTAK (the Hungarian national tourism data system), GDPR-compliant, and comes with local support.

The Core plan starts at 4,990 HUF per location per month (plus a per-order transaction fee). That's roughly the price of five or six coffees, and a single regular you keep pays it back many times over. On the Loyalty+ plan there is no per-user (MAU) fee for the first 6 months, so you can test what a loyalty programme brings your café without the risk.

Summary

Guests have money right now, but the gap between supermarket and café prices makes them more careful about where they spend it. A blanket discount gives back a share of all your revenue. Loyalty rewards, prepaid credit and targeted offers give only to the people who keep coming back.

Want to see how this would work in your café? Request a demo at partner.cheers.hu and ask about the Loyalty+ offer with no MAU fee for the first 6 months.