Overview on SMEs Family-run Local Coffee Shop in Malaysia: Challenges and Determinants of Survival

Recently, The Tourism Minister has challenged the Malaysia-Singapore Coffee Shop Proprietors General Association to publish a booklet with a list of 100 best kopitiams in Malaysia to promote the nation’s unique coffee shop trade to the world. Local coffee shops (kopitiams) are the intangible cultural heritage that are successful in guarding their traditional recipe, thus an adequate review on local coffee shops is significant as they can use this opportunity to benefit from the country’s expanding tourism industry. In essence, this paper provides an overview of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) family-run local coffee shop businesses. An attempt was made to identify the challenges of local coffee shops (kopitiams) from literature review. These challenges include lack of interest from the new generation to take over those businesses, fierce competition in food industry, and change of consumer demand. Furthermore, this paper also helps to understand the determinants of local coffee shop survival.