Shutdown · Commerce & Consumer Brands

Zepto Cafe temporarily closes 44 outlets in 5 cities

What they do

Zepto delivers groceries and cafe items within 10 minutes across Indian cities

It temporarily closed 44 cafe outlets in five Tier II cities due to supply chain issues and high costs, affecting over 400 employees

The company expects cafe operations to resume by end of next quarter and aims to triple daily orders within 12 months

Zepto Cafe temporarily closed 44 outlets in five Tier II cities: Amritsar, Chandigarh, Meerut, Mohali, and Agra.
The closures were due to supply chain issues and high costs.
Over 700 employees were affected by the closures.
Affected employees were absorbed into picker/packer roles at the same dark store or transferred to a nearby cafe.
Zepto expects cafe operations to resume by September 2025.
The company plans to operate cafes at the same scale with fewer employees and invest aggressively to reach 300,000 orders per day within 12 months.
Zepto Cafe crossed 100,000 daily orders in February 2025.

Zepto's monthly spending on salaries for about 3,000 employees was Rs 95 crore in April 2025.
Monthly spending dropped from Rs 115-120 crore in March 2025 to about Rs 95 crore.
The company is trimming store teams from 9 people to 7 or 8 to cut costs.
Gross Order Value grew to Rs 2,400 crore in May 2025 from Rs 750 crore in May 2024.
EBITDA improved by 20 absolute percentage points from January to May 2025.

Zepto Cafe's share of consumer spending climbed to 8% in Q4FY24 from 5% in Q1FY24.
Zepto targets annual cafe revenue of Rs 1,000 crore by 2026.
The company expects majority of dark stores to be fully EBITDA positive by next quarter.
Handling costs at dark stores fell 9% to under Rs 10 per order in January 2024 from Rs 11 per order in June 2023.

It plans to operate cafes at the same scale with fewer employees.
The company aims to reach 300,000 cafe orders per day within 12 months.
After reaching 1,000 dark stores, Zepto will focus on optimisation and profitability.
Zepto expects majority of dark stores to be fully EBITDA positive by next quarter.

Product: A rapid-delivery app for groceries and everyday essentials.
Customers: Consumers ordering groceries and essentials online.
How it makes money: It earns from product margins, delivery fees, and order-value thresholds across its quick-commerce network.
What sets it apart: It was built as a quick-commerce native company from day one.
Operations: Operates dark-store based 10-minute delivery across multiple Indian cities.