The customer is always king! Exploring how service experiences, identity fit, and social media shape customer satisfaction and loyalty in the café sector

China’s café sector has moved from excellent coffees to address experience, ambiance, exposure, and brand exclusivity. Stimulus-organism-response (SOR) theory furthers the social, emotional, and behavioural endeavours on customer loyalty in this evolutionary industry. This study investigated the influences of service innovation, store environment, staff behaviour, identity cues, and self-congruence cues including lifestyle congruence, brand identification, and ideal self-congruence on brand loyalty by internalizing satisfaction, brand trust, and brand love. Social media marketing activities (SMMA) was further examined on the internalized factors and brand loyalty. Using AMOS and SPSS, obtained findings from 351 café consumers in China clarified the collective influences of operational excellence and identity alignment on satisfaction. The insignificant influence of ideal self-congruence specifies matching brand identity through actual self-congruence. Satisfaction then influences brand loyalty through brand trust and brand love, with SMMA moderates the relationship between satisfaction and brand loyalty. This study highlighted the importance of external and self-congruence stimuli on satisfaction, brand trust, and brand love. To improve brand loyalty, meaningful social media engagement is strategically needed by café practitioners for higher satisfaction.