Dutch Bros Holds 9 Spokane Drive Thrus. No Chain Took the Maps First Seven.

Thomas Garner

Oct 7

10 min read

Downtown Spokane skyline seen over pine trees from above Edwidge Woldson Park

Photo: SounderBruce, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

This Spokane series has walked the city address by address: Saranac Commons on Main Avenue, 1st Avenue, Hamilton Street by Gonzaga, North Monroe, Broadway, Summit Parkway in Kendall Yards, Garland and 57th Avenue on South Hill. Before closing it out, there is a fair question left to answer. What about the chains? In particular, what about Dutch Bros, whose own locator lists nine drive thru stores inside Spokane city limits.

Nine is a real number, and it deserves to be stated plainly. It also deserves to be set next to a second fact: in a Maps results list pulled on September 13, 2026 for the query coffee shop in Spokane WA, none of the first seven places was a national chain. Store count and search results are two different pictures of the same city. This closeout puts them side by side.

Nine Drive Thrus, Street by Street

Dutch Bros' Spokane locator page states nine locations in Spokane, Washington, and lists nine street addresses: 10109 W Sunset Hwy, 1306 N Division St, 1010 W Francis Ave, 931 E Francis Ave, 3421 N Market St, 410 W 2nd Ave, 8701 N Division St, 402 S Freya St and 11921 N Division St.

Read as a map, that list follows Spokane's big arterials. Three stores sit on Division Street, the main north and south route, two sit on Francis Avenue on the north side, and the rest are spread from Sunset Highway on the west edge to Freya Street on the east side and 2nd Avenue downtown. It is a footprint built for drivers.

That footprint is real, it is current, and it is not going anywhere. A drive thru on Division serves a commuter in a car. That is a different visit from a sit down counter on Main Avenue or Summit Parkway, and the two rarely compete for the same moment in a person's day.

Spokane Is Nine. Spokane Valley Is Four.

The Dutch Bros Washington page lists 74 locations statewide. On that page, Spokane shows nine stores and Spokane Valley shows four, on separate lines.

Those two numbers are never added together here. Spokane Valley is a separate city with 105,460 residents in the Census Bureau's 2023 five year estimate, and Spokane itself had 229,228. Liberty Lake, farther east, is a separate city of 12,435. Each keeps its own count.

Precision like this matters because footprint numbers are easy to inflate. Adding nearby suburbs into a city total makes a chain look bigger and a local scene look smaller. Nine, taken straight from the locator page for Spokane, is the number that describes this city.

Where 7 Brew Stands

7 Brew has grown quickly in many states, so it is reasonable to ask whether it has reached Spokane. As of September 2026, its own store locator showed no Washington state page and no Spokane page, and its list of locations nationwide did not include Washington.

That leaves the national drive thru picture in Spokane simple. Dutch Bros has nine stores inside the city. 7 Brew has none listed in the state. No other chain count is offered here, because none was sourced, and a number that was not sourced is better left out.

For Spokane owners, that means the national drive thru pressure in the city comes from one brand with a known set of addresses. It is a clear, bounded picture, and it can be planned around rather than feared.

The First Seven in Maps Were All Local

Now the other picture. On September 13, 2026, a Google Maps results list for the query coffee shop in Spokane WA was opened and its first seven place results were recorded. Not one of them was a Starbucks, a Dunkin, a Dutch Bros or a 7 Brew. All seven were local businesses.

Two days later, on September 15, a separate search for coffee shop Spokane WA returned a map block of three places. Those three were local businesses too. The two captures are different queries on different days, so they are not averaged or merged. But they point the same way.

That is worth pausing on. A chain with nine real stores in the city did not take any of the first seven Maps places for a plain coffee shop search in either snapshot. Store count and search visibility are separate contests, and in these two snapshots, Spokane's local businesses held the second one.

What That Does and Does Not Mean

It is important to be careful with a finding like this. Maps results change with the searcher's location, the time of day and many signals that shift constantly. Two snapshots are two snapshots, not a permanent rule. A search run from a different corner of the city, or on a different week, could return a different mix.

What the snapshots do show is that a large drive thru footprint does not automatically translate into the top of a local coffee search. The query coffee shop brings up places people go to sit, meet and linger, and local businesses were the ones filling those first places in both snapshots.

For a Spokane independent, that is encouraging. It suggests that a clear, local presence can hold its own next to a chain with far more storefronts, and that the work of describing a room well is not wasted just because a drive thru opens down the road.

The Rest of the Search Page

The September 15 search showed more than a map block. It also returned an AI Overview at the top and eight web results below: a local food blog's best coffee roundup, a creative studio's list of coffee shops to work from, the Visit Spokane coffee guide, a Reddit thread in r/Spokane with more than 70 comments, a Facebook food group thread with more than 20, a Tripadvisor list of the city's ten best cafes and two cafe homepages.

None of those eight web results was a chain's page. The whole first page of a plain Spokane coffee search, from the map block to the last web result, was built from local businesses and from people writing about them.

That is the clearest single sign in this series that Spokane coffee search, at least for now, is a local conversation.

Where Drive Thrus and Neighborhood Rooms Meet

The chain and independent maps do overlap in a few places. On Francis Avenue, Dutch Bros lists a store at 1010 W Francis Ave, and New Love Coffee has a shop about two blocks west at 1212 W Francis Ave. Downtown, Dutch Bros lists 410 W 2nd Ave, a short walk from the independent cafes on 1st Avenue and Main Avenue.

Even where they share a street, they rarely serve the same moment. A driver in a hurry on Francis wants a window. A neighbor on foot wants a counter and a chair. Both can do well on the same block because they are answering different needs.

Why Local Businesses Show Up for Local Searches

Maps results lean heavily on a few plain signals: how close a place is to the searcher, how relevant its business profile is to the words typed, and how well known it is locally through reviews, mentions and press. Those are signals an independent can influence directly.

Spokane's independents have real local recognition to draw on. The Inlander's Best Of 2026 named Hatch Beaker + Burr, at 19 W Main Ave Suite 3, the city's best independent coffee shop, with Atticus Coffee & Gifts at 222 N Howard St and First Avenue Coffee at 1011 W 1st Ave Suite A among the top picks. Recognition like that is repeated by blogs, guides and threads, and it builds the kind of local prominence that search systems notice.

None of that depends on the number of storefronts. It depends on being clearly described, in the right place, with the right details.

The Neighborhood Map Behind the Search

Across this series, Spokane's independent coffee has turned out to be a neighborhood story. Downtown holds Main Avenue, 1st Avenue and Riverside. Logan holds Hamilton Street near Gonzaga. North Monroe holds a corridor of several rooms. Broadway and Summit Parkway hold West Central and Kendall Yards. Garland and 57th Avenue hold their own corners of the city.

Chains follow the arterials. Independents tend to follow neighborhoods. That difference is part of why the two show up differently in search. A drinker who adds a street or neighborhood name to a coffee search is asking a local question, and local shops are built to answer it.

For owners, that is the practical edge. A drive thru on Division competes on convenience. A room on Hamilton or Summit Parkway competes on place, and place is something a chain cannot copy.

Not Seattle, Not Coeur d'Alene

A closeout is also the right moment to restate the geography. Spokane is not a smaller Seattle. Seattle is a separate coastal city of 741,440 residents in the same Census survey, with its own long coffee history. Spokane's scene grew on its own streets, around its own river and its own university, and it stands on its own.

Spokane is not Coeur d'Alene either. Coeur d'Alene is a lake town across the Idaho line with its own downtown and its own cafes, and it belongs to its own story. Nothing in these posts has folded Idaho shops or Idaho numbers into Spokane, and this post does not start now.

Keeping those lines clear is what makes the Spokane numbers mean something, and it is what lets a reader in Logan, Garland or Kendall Yards trust that the places named here are actually nearby. Nine Dutch Bros stores, 229,228 residents and a first seven in Maps made entirely of local businesses all describe this city, not a bigger one to the west or a different one to the east.

What This Means If You Run a Spokane Coffee Shop

Put it together and the message for a Spokane owner is steady rather than alarming. Dutch Bros has a real nine store footprint, and it is not going away. Yet in two separate snapshots from September 2026, local businesses filled the Maps results for a plain coffee shop search. The chain's storefront count has not translated into those places.

Holding that ground takes ordinary, consistent work. A complete business profile, a clear street address with any suite number, accurate hours, the neighborhood name the way locals say it and any published praise stated plainly are the basics that help a local room stay visible for the people closest to it.

The strongest independents in any city also give each neighborhood its own answer. A search from Garland, from Kendall Yards or from South Hill is a narrower question than a citywide one, and it is a question a drive thru on an arterial rarely answers as well as a room on that very block.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many Dutch Bros locations are in Spokane?

Dutch Bros lists nine locations inside Spokane on its own locator page, with addresses including 10109 W Sunset Hwy, 410 W 2nd Ave downtown and 11921 N Division St on the far north end. Three of the nine are on Division Street and two are on Francis Avenue. Spokane Valley, a separate city east of Spokane, has four more Dutch Bros stores that are always counted separately.

Did any national chain appear in the first seven Maps results?

No. In a Google Maps results list opened on September 13, 2026 for coffee shop in Spokane WA, none of the first seven places was a Starbucks, Dunkin, Dutch Bros or 7 Brew. All seven were local businesses. A separate September 15 search showed a three place map block that was also made up entirely of local businesses.

Does Spokane have a 7 Brew?

As of September 2026, 7 Brew's own store locator showed no Washington state page and no Spokane page, and its nationwide location list did not include Washington. That leaves Dutch Bros, with nine stores inside Spokane and 74 across Washington, as the main national drive thru brand in the city. No other chain count is offered here because none was sourced.

Why are Spokane and Spokane Valley counted separately?

Spokane and Spokane Valley are separate cities. The Census Bureau's 2023 five year estimate puts Spokane at 229,228 residents and Spokane Valley at 105,460. Dutch Bros' Washington page lists Spokane at nine stores and Spokane Valley at four on separate lines, and adding them together would overstate the chain's footprint inside Spokane itself by nearly half.

Are the two Maps snapshots the same measurement?

No. The September 13, 2026 Maps results list and the September 15 search were different queries on different days, so they are quoted separately and never averaged. They agree on the main point: in both, the Maps places shown for a plain coffee shop search in Spokane were local businesses rather than national chains like Dutch Bros or Starbucks.

Why do local businesses show up in Maps ahead of chains?

Maps results lean on closeness to the searcher, how well a business profile matches the words typed, and local prominence from reviews, mentions and press. Independents can build all three. In Spokane, local press such as the Inlander's Best Of 2026, which honored three downtown cafes, adds to the kind of recognition search systems tend to notice.

Which shops did the Inlander honor in 2026?

The Inlander's Best Of 2026 named Hatch Beaker + Burr, at 19 W Main Ave Suite 3 in Saranac Commons, Spokane's best independent coffee shop. Atticus Coffee & Gifts, at 222 N Howard St, and First Avenue Coffee, at 1011 W 1st Ave Suite A, were among the top picks. All three are downtown, a few blocks apart.

Is this Spokane story connected to Seattle or Coeur d'Alene?

No. Spokane is a separate city of 229,228 residents with its own neighborhoods, river and university. Seattle is a coastal city of 741,440 in the same Census survey, with its own coffee history. Coeur d'Alene is a lake town across the Idaho line with its own downtown and cafes, and its shops and numbers stay out of Spokane coverage.

Where do chains and independents sit on the Spokane map?

Dutch Bros stores follow the big arterials, with three on Division Street and two on Francis Avenue. Independent shops follow neighborhoods: Main Avenue and 1st Avenue downtown, Hamilton Street near Gonzaga, North Monroe, Summit Parkway in Kendall Yards, Garland and 57th Avenue on South Hill. The two serve different kinds of visits, one for drivers and one for neighbors.

What should a Spokane independent do to stay visible?

Keep a complete business profile with the full street address and any suite number, accurate hours and the neighborhood name locals use, and state any published praise plainly with its source and year. A room on Hamilton, Garland or Summit Parkway answers a neighborhood search that a drive thru on Division Street rarely answers as well.

Work with Hillcane

Dutch Bros lists nine Spokane drive thrus, yet the first seven places in a September 2026 Maps list for coffee shop in Spokane WA were all local businesses.

If you run a Spokane coffee shop and want a clear look at how local searches treat independents next to the chains, reach Hillcane at hillcane.co/contact or call (256) 384-2449.