Software Engineer Leaves High-Paying Job to Open Matcha Cafe in Manhattan

Despite earning roughly $250,000 a year as a software engineer, Michelle Yeung felt increasingly disconnected from the work.

"I wanted to transition into something where I was making someone's day better or making someone happier in some way," she tells CNBC Make It. Rather than quitting right away, she spent months exploring what might come next.

In the summer of 2024, Yeung started thinking seriously about opening a matcha cafe in Manhattan after noticing a lack of high-quality options in the city, asking herself "Why is my own matcha better?"

But Yeung wasn't going to leave her high-paying job without a plan.

Before leaving software engineering, she worked 5 a.m. Starbucks shifts to learn cafe operations, traveled to Japan to research matcha and accumulated savings she would later use to help launch the business.

Today, she runs Matcha House on Manhattan's Lower East Side. The business is on track to be profitable in its first year and is gradually recouping its startup costs.

"I'm so much happier now than I was before," she says.

Working 'undercover' at Starbucks: 'I was on my own little mission'

Once Yeung decided a matcha cafe might be the right next step, she set out to learn everything she could before leaving software engineering.

She traveled to Japan to study how matcha, a drink made from finely ground green tea powder, was sourced, prepared and served. She took notes on harvesting techniques and whisking methods and tested different powder-to-water ratios to achieve consistent results.

Back in New York, she recruited friends to taste-test different matchas and continued researching whether a shop could succeed financially.

Because she had no experience working in food service, she says she spent "a couple of months" working "undercover" at Starbucks from roughly 5 a.m. until 10 a.m. before logging on for software engineering meetings later in the morning.

"I was on my own little mission," Yeung says.

The preparation extended to the search for a storefront. Yeung spent months touring locations and meeting with landlords, many of whom were reluctant to rent to a first-time business owner.

Eventually, she found a small space on a side street in Manhattan's Lower East Side. She later described it as "pretty perfect" — small, well-located and relatively affordable for the neighborhood.

By March 2025, Yeung had accumulated more than $200,000 in savings and felt ready to leave software engineering.

Opening day brought a few surprises

Despite all the preparation, starting the business came with unexpected challenges.

Yeung says contractors often failed to finish work they had promised, leading to delays and a series of last-minute setbacks. The night before the soft opening for friends and family, the cafe flooded.

"Behind the curtains there was just flooding going on and we just had to mop over it," Yeung says.

She says she couldn't have opened the business without help from friends, who assembled furniture, hung curtains and prepared the space in the final days before launch.

When the Matcha House first opened in July 2025, Yeung often worked 12-hour days and personally whisked every drink herself.

"The first two months, I only trusted myself to whisk every drink," she says.

Over time, she learned to hand off more of those responsibilities. Matcha House now employs about 10 part-time workers, and Yeung no longer needs to be behind the counter every day. Looking back, Yeung said her time at Starbucks provided a crash course in the industry "within a short period of time" before she opened Matcha House.

The cafe is on track to be profitable in its first year, and Yeung says she is gradually recouping the money she invested to get it off the ground.

She expects to pay herself about $33,000 in 2026, while reinvesting much of the business's earnings back into the company. She keeps her personal expenses low, spending less than $2,500 in a typical month.

"My life is less about how much money I'm making right now and more about what I'm doing every day," Yeung says. "A year into the business, I'm just grateful that we've survived a year and we can survive another year."

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