China’s largest coffee chain is coming to the Big Apple — after trampling Starbucks in Asia.
Luckin Coffee opened its first US locations Monday, including a storefront at 755 Broadway in Greenwich Village and another at 800 Sixth Ave. in NoMad, according to posts on its social media accounts.
Luckin did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
It has been promoting the new storefronts with special deals and discounts, offering free tote bags to the first 100 customers in stores on Monday and 99-cent drinks for a limited time.
The coffee chain’s stores are marketed toward young consumers, requiring customers to use mobile phones to place orders and mostly offering cashless payment options and takeout counters.
Luckin has a wide-ranging menu that rivals US competitors like Starbucks and Dutch Bros, selling coffee, matcha, lattes and fruity drinks mixed with espresso. It also sells some pastries, including a banana yogurt loaf and a sausage, egg and cheese croissant.
Its sales have been helped by its low prices, selling drinks in China for about 30% less than Starbucks.
Luckin, which was founded in Xiamen, China in 2017, quickly expanded to overtake Starbucks by number of storefronts in 2019. It currently boasts about 22,000 locations in China and dozens more in Singapore.
By 2020, however, the company was shrouded in scandal. It was forced to retreat from a $645 million initial public offering after it admitted to fudging its revenue figures to inflate its share price. It was delisted from the Nasdaq and its chairman and CEO were fired.
The Securities and Exchange Commission slapped Luckin with a $180 million fine on accounting fraud civil charges, and the following year it reached a $175 million settlement of related shareholder class-action claims.
But the company has continued to grow. In 2023, it doubled its number of stores and increased its revenue by 87%, reporting higher results in China than Starbucks.
It was reported earlier this month that Starbucks was allegedly courting buyers for a partial sale of its Chinese business, but the Seattle-based company has since denied those reports.
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