[Closed] Long shot - how much to open a coffee shop?

Setting up and running are two different things...

Also, interested.

@rob2
Hope you not in South Glos 😉

Depends on what is already there, what image you want and how much of the shop fitting you can do yourself.
It should be a licence to print money if you get it right.

depends what vibe you're wanting and how much you can do yourself when it comes to shop-fitting & decoratiing. Modern or homely or arty or grungy or 'Friendsy'.

Do you know of any local artists? You could ask them to display some of their work.
What about bakers or cake shops for the eats and sandwiches.

i would reckon you would need :-

* Big coffee machine £1.5k (guess ?)
* Furniture £1k (at a guess, dependant on look you could raid local charity shops and be up and running for couple of hundred)
* White goods eg fridge, oven, microwave, water boiler etc
* Shopfitting would be dependant what's already there- but could be as cheap as chips or expensive depending on your feel.
* Decorating- £200 spent in B&Q and do it yourself.
* Music machine £500
* Stock- I have no clue on what you're projected demand would be- but I would do a simple calculation of lead time v demand v bulk discount. But it shouldn't be that much say £300?
* Rent and rates.
* Business set up costs £200

Maybe you should speak to a business advisor or your Small Business Advisor at the bank so that you can create a business plan to detemine the viabilty.

Good luck if you go for it.

I *think* you can get the coffee machines rent free if you sign up with a coffee supplier. Obviously depends how much you will sell etc, etc.,

Don't forget the costs of any training / certification you may need.

It's completely empty at the mo.

V helpful guys

Geoff - I'm not in south glos!

Was hoping to pick up some commuter trade as there is a station in the village too (1hr to London)

What would be the sort of clientelle? Old scone munchers, active people like bikers etc, or studenty laptop users / coffee lovers?
I have often thought that there is space for an urban feeling coffee house in the country. I like that kind of "spend the afternoon or evening" type atmosphere you get in a god city coffee house. Ifg thats whats needed, then free wifi is a must, dimmable lights, comfy sofas as well as proper sit at tables so people needing the type seriously can. Displays from local artists are good, as well as gigs by small bands etc.

Staff need to be friendly too and not too cliquey.

My prefered place has prepacked sandwiches, and two hot dishes every day, one soup and one stew, always veggie, but usually curry or goulash, home made and very tasty, served with wholemeal bread. They cook big batches and store in the fridge in microwaveable containers and heat as needed. All seems simple and works very well. Key thing is they do a couple of things well and dont do a lot.

HTH

Key thing is they do a couple of things well and dont do a lot.

Stripper?
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...you're right, it's not constructive, I'll not bother you again.

More than you think. A decent coffee machine - £5k or lease from the beans supplier. Some display units, fridges, tables and chairs/sofas - not a lot but need to look and perform so not particularly cheap. Have you considered the staffing costs?
Quality pays but needs paying for too.
Good luck!

Costs will be loads more than you think

?Staff - you cannot run a business completely solo? Who makes the coffee when you are having a pee? Are you going to do all the claening as well? Will one person serving be enough at busy times?

Equipment will be thousands. IIRC the coffee machine in my local place was £5000. You also need fridges, cookers and so on

Training - food hygeine certificates etc

Red tape. Plenty of that.

I have often thought that there is space for an urban feeling coffee house in the country. I like that kind of "spend the afternoon or evening" type atmosphere you get in a god city coffee house. Ifg thats whats needed, then free wifi is a must, dimmable lights, comfy sofas as well as proper sit at tables so people needing the type seriously can.

You just need to be careful that you get a good turnover of customers. Don't make it too comfy.

And an Esquire franchise [b]might[/b] be worth looking into - if only to see what sort of costs they assume.

http://www.esquirescoffee.co.uk/public/pages/interested

Check to see whether any grants exist plus what the local authority costs will be.

As said, you need to do a business plan with setup costs then running costs with (hopefully) income projections.

And tbh if it was a 'goldmine', somebody would already be there.

As per station users, you need to be between the ticket seller and the train...

The business plan will involve projections of customers. So your idea that the village needs a coffee shop might not be the same idea as the general population. Do some market reasearch, it'll save you a lot of time, energy and possible expense. (See, I can be sensible too 😀 )

Have you thought about a franchise?

Hadn't thought of a franchise but worth looking into.

I was thinking of doing the one or two things well type model. There's commuters in the village lots of mums with nowhere to go (my wife is one if them) and old people and lots of kids.

It's beside a tesco metro which is open all hours so footfall should be good.

Couple of bikers in the village too!

I like the stripper idea, maybe keep that for the evening special 🙂

[i]Hadn't thought of a franchise but worth looking into.[/i]

Franchise exist to make money for them, not you...

Just sit down and work out the numbers, then go and sit outside (for a week?) and work out when people are actually passing by - and the likelyhood of them actually taking time out.

Plus could Tesco's suddenly add a cafe/coffee point?

And what is the parking like?

Some good friends of ours opened one up in Bromsgrove about 18 months ago.

One of the most important things they have is a commercial grade dishwasher, they managed to pick one up off Ebay dirt cheap as it hadn't been listed properly.

If you want I can forward you email address on to them to see if they've the time* to answer any questions.

*It really is time consuming, it's not all about brewing a coffee and the odd cup of builders, She is there from 5am until 7pm and her husband still has to work full time.

If there's a station consider either making it some kind of drive thru or at least drive by (with easy parking) or get a mobile stall/car for the station platform or car park.

how much do these things take to set up

Stock- I have no clue on what you're projected demand would be- but I would do a simple calculation of lead time v demand v bulk discount. But it shouldn't be that much say £300?

A lot of this amount is to cover costs you will encure before trading starts, solicitors, rent, equipment and staff during training/setup.

I think it might be too small

I suggest one of your first steps is to have a chat with the council as I'm guessing the property will have an A1 license - you'll need an A3 - they can give you an idea of how likely this is and you can get one in principle before you start spending any money.

Also start to think about potential customers. As mentioned in a post above spend [s]some[/s] a lot of time hanging around outside looking at the passing trade - it's good to have an idea of what you want but this needs to be balanced with what is needed? upmystreet.com will help when doing proper research into the demographics and business link have some great free (and not free) courses that will help you realise the things you have not thorght about.

EHO are generally quite helpful if you contact them (you do need to register with them 28 days before you open) as there are quite a few things to consider when fitting a new commercial kitchen - i can send you some info if you like - and if you've not worked in catering go on a hygiene course, it will keep them happy.

do your market research before you look at costs IMO, all the retail units that open near us seem to go to the wall pretty quickly and it was obvious that they didn't research the market

re the passing trade thing,

find out where a few (preferably failed) coffee shops have been situated, stand outside and count the number of passers by that fall into your potential target market (I'm guessing 18-40 and fairly well groomed). Do this 3x a day on a weekeday and a weekend (say morning rush hour, mid afternoon, evening rush hour)

Now repeat the same excercise at your potential premisis. If the number you get here is less than att he failed premisis your not going to do well.

Another thing to look at is the population of the village, look at similar villages, how many have coffee houses? If no other vilage of comparable size can suppourt one, then you dont stand a chance.

Is there a tourist trade? Think more Tea-Room than Coffee House?

Have you asked about the business rates for the location yet?

That can vary quite a bit on the location.

Location, rent & BR, all big hits, worth getting right 😉

Does the property have a A3 classification? If not what is your local authority planning department like to deal with?

Not sure what the classification is but it used to be a bakery but couldn't compete with tesco.

They are also building 750 houses in the village over the next two years which should initially be on line by middle of next year.

The village currently supports a butcher and a pharmacy and small tesco. Was thinking of chatting to the tesco manager as they are pretty friendly to see what info they have on customers etc.

Some helpful tips in here to assess the business model.

What else would peeps like to see from a coffee shop other than the obvious coffee and cakes business?

No tourist trade mind

The esquire fanchises are extremely expensive. You'd have to work damn hard just to recoup costs £40k to £125k! Their branding didn't look too good either.

What else would peeps like to see from a coffee shop other than the obvious coffee and cakes business?

The one thing the coffee shop near us lacks is some Sheffield stands to lock my bike to, as it's not within walking distance.

Free wifi a must too.

Loyalty card for coffee (9 stamps=free cup)?

Andy

if you do it employ part-time not full time staff

they are more flexible to cover each other during sickness, holidays etc

What are you going to bring to the business? Never mind what we want, why are we going to come to you?
How many houses in the village now? Do some sums based on that market ie everything from 1 cup per household per week upwards. Given we're still in an economic downturn, expensive coffee is one of the things people reduce spending on.

expensive coffee is one of the things people reduce spending on.

Is it, though? I thought small luxury spending actually went up as people cheer themselves up?

Andy

Avoid franchises ... as you will be working for them.

Stick to 2 group machine to start with as anything more than that is a waste or even 1 group if you can get one that has big boiler.

You can:
1) Buy
2) Lease
3) Rent
4) Buy a 2nd hand (not advisable unless you know what you're doing).

Price of beans vary but generally around £8 - £20+ /kg depending on beans.

I like friendly independent coffee shop that brew proper coffee and not £4 per cup shite. Be reasonable with pricing as there is no quick rich pyramid scheme here ... What £3 for a tiny slice of cake? Pui! Pui! Pui!

I like friendly independent coffee shop that brew proper coffee and not £4 per cup shite.

But is that where the money is to be made? Something tells me it's not 🙂

What else would peeps like to see from a coffee shop other than the obvious coffee and cakes business?

Sandwiches, and also breakfast food. I don't necessarily mean fry-ups, but something breakfasty like croissants or maybe get a waffle machine, and frying pan for pancakes 🙂

molgrips - Member

But is that where the money is to be made? Something tells me it's not

That depends on your customers' experience but I ain't paying £4 for a cup of coffee and even £3 is still expensive for me, yes, £2 to £2.50 sitting in a warm cafe with good atmosphere.

My point is, you can't make a business doing what you and your friends enjoy - you have to do what makes enough money.

I suspect that not many people are connoisseurs of fine coffee, but many more like mild tasting coffee flavoured sweetness.

If after all overheads, rent, rates, electricity, equipment costs, legal costs, training costs, cleaning costs (You do know you have to take the temprature of your fridges every few hours and record for h&s inspections)and staff costs if you ever want a day off, you still earn £25k net, from a small village selling coffee at a price to make people come in, and can get that from village footfall on a tuesday at 11:00 am, then thats actually good going.

You need to make at imho at least £50k a year to manage that. - £1k a week. So thats £1k essentially of core coffee sales. - at a profit of say £2 a cup (and trust me, that is optomistic) thats 500 cups a week. Divide by 6 (to give you at least a day or 2 closed periods to do the books and stock/deliveries. So about 85 coffees a day min. Open from say 7am to 5 pm for your passing trade and thats 8.5 coffees per hour.

Or roughly one every 7-8 mins. Will you be so busy at peak to make up for the long periods through the day where your selling nothing? Will you have the staff to cope at core time?

What can you offer to make people come in? I am far too cynical to ever spend £2-3 on a simple coffee at say a railway station, in fact I actively resent the presence of vastly over priced coffee at "convenience locations". Is there a niche thats unfulfilled? Are you close to great trails and can offer secure bike parking?

McDonalds sell coffee for a known quantity for about the cost of your profit per cup, if your lucky. Why am I going to you? I think sandwiches and cakes are "so overpriced" typically, that I begrudge the cash.

Commuters tend to buy coffee at the station as opposed to on the way to it, you can't expect that trade any you get is a boon.

I have a friend who runs a successful cafe/coffee house. He works very long hours and barely makes a living.

I'm interested as to why you would say this...

Stick to 2 group machine to start with as anything more than that is a waste or even 1 group if you can get one that has big boiler.

molgrips - Member

My point is, you can't make a business doing what you and your friends enjoy - you have to do what makes enough money.

I suspect that not many people are connoisseurs of fine coffee, but many more like mild tasting coffee flavoured sweetness.

Okay, yes, whatever you can squeeze out from the customer but so long as you do not leave a bitter taste in their mouth.

Didn't make myself clear ... I just drink coffee with 1 to 2 sugar that's all no milk etc, so I guess £2.50 is the max I will pay.

I want to know how big this village is and how many potential customers there are?

Chew - the point is, how many of you are there?

Okay, yes, whatever you can squeeze out from the customer but so long as you do not leave a bitter taste in their mouth.

i see what you did there 😀

Some good things to think of here.

There isn't a shop at the station but the shop is by the station (on station road so right by where everyone walks by) and could potentially do something at the station too.

Jujuuk68 - This is what concerns me, I'd done similar simple sums working back from an income. I'd try and make more from some good sales (breakfast croissants say) but it requires a constant footfall maybe.

The village is a population of about 3,400

So if say I needed 80 cups a day then that's 2% of all people day in day out buying a cup. Taking into account that some of those are children or won't drink coffee it, is that viable? We'll see.

The next large settlement has about 7000-8000 people and is a Market town and has three two coffee shops (it has a larger pull mind)

It's going to require some good sums but I'm up for that. I'd keep my job as back up and my wife and another mum would run the shop (the other mum knows almost everyone in the village so I reckon would be useful !)

phil.w - Member

I'm interested as to why you would say this...

.. a big boiler yes, but why is a 3 group a waste? Do you not think it depends on how many cups it needs to fire out per minute/hour/whatever. Or are you suggesting get more than one machine if you need the extra capacity?

Several reasons in no particular order:

1) New start up - business might pick up slowly but I might be wrong. The idea is to save some £££ first as you can always add another machine or get a bigger one if the business is so good your 2 group can no longer cope.

2) Not to put all eggs in one basket. i.e. if you have a 3 group and for whatever reason the machine breakdown you are ****ed. I would rather get a 2 group + 1 group if I were to start a cafe. The one group with very big boiler like Elektra (well, I like the look of Elektra even when one of their 3 group exploded recently ... LOL!) or the efficient La Spaziale (53mm portafilter basket ... hmm ... don't like that but not a problem).

3) Skill of the barista. 2 group should be able to cope with most orders if the barista is effective enough so save some £££.

Where I work there is a guy selling take-away coffee (coffee only) in a mini van at a high traffic zone with a compact 2 group WEGA and he serves non-stop almost every morning. I reckon on a good day from 8am - 10.30am he could have served up 200 - 300 coffee ( assuming 30 seconds shot). He only makes the coffee while his assistant put a lid on the cup and take the cash etc. Oh ya ... most of the time he was only using one of the group head anyway. Hardly two at once.

Therefore, unless you can beat him I see no reason in getting something more than 2 group.

🙂

molgrips - Member

I want to know how big this village is and how many potential customers there are?

Chew - the point is, how many of you are there?

LOL! I guess not many but then if you have had a good cup you will always try to get that "fix" again with a daily visit.

I suspect that not many people are connoisseurs of fine coffee, but many more like mild tasting coffee flavoured sweetness.

Yeah, and in France I had a 'cappucino' that was black coffee with squirty cream on top... 🙄

Chewkw - indeed, but many business go to the wall with a small loyal customer base. Don't forget most people still drink Nescafe at home.