Forum menu
What would people suggest a good way to address 100 club riders turning up for Sunday morning cake?
Thank you for coming into town?
It's not like high streets are dying on their arses due to a lack of people bothering to come into towns anymore because there's nothing to attract them is it?
My advice to anyone starting a cafe would be:
Either take the time and care to make the espresso stuff well or just do filter coffee.
I've been travelling around a bit in the last few weeks and the one thing that has struck me is how unpleasant the coffee can be from a poorly-wielded machine.
As for the cycling-specific thing, I'd just say seats with a back on them. Maybe some cake options that aren't huge portions.
Maybe some cake options that aren’t huge portions.
You're weird!
obsession with the right nutrients in the right cake,
You have wired friends.
You’re weird!
Maybe. I mean I really do like cake a lot, but not enough to want to taste it again 15 minutes after I've left the cafe.
Good coffee and an absence of horse flies. Bike racks inside the cafe. Not at the bottom of a bastard hill - yes Edale Station caff, I mean you.
Personally I'm happy with a cafe where cyclists are welcome rather than one where cycling is fetishised. And even a great caff won't drag me to a dire location, the one in Romiley springs to mind, erm, Polocini. I'm sure it was a nice caff, but it would take more than that to make me go there. Closed now.
I’d just look at the basics, survive as a cafe first, then add the cyclists as the Brucie Bonus. Count footfall, mystery shop the competition, work out break even, how many coffee and cakes a day to stay afloat. Is there a bakery nearby, sell their bread as well. Anything to get people popping in.
Get a specialist to look at shop lease. If it goes tits up they might need to pay to get out of the lease, some deals can be really really bad for the tenant.
Yummy mummies, old folk and and families make a cafe pay, not cyclists.
If it's good, cyclists will still come, most places round here have nowhere to lock a bike, but bike crime is low.
Either take the time and care to make the espresso stuff well or just do filter coffee.
5 years a barista here.. Decent filter is just as involved as decent espresso.
Decent filter is just as involved as decent espresso.
I'd agree that making really good filter coffee is really involved. But it's much easier to make filter coffee that isn't shit than it is to make espresso that isn't shit.
Highly doubt the average punter cares for the TDS of their microlot face melter/could discern or even value the difference between the likes of Tim Wendelboe or Starbucks anyway.
Making a good cup of coffee isn't rocket science, giving a toss is the most important factor IMO. If 'not shit' is the criteria then go batch brew filter or autodosing grinder/volumetric machine and hire a barista or two worth their salt to dial in your recipes.
I don't get some of you with your 'coffee' weirdness.
Coffee is coffee, some is nicer than others, but mostly it's just coffee, i prefer Starbucks to Costa, but i'll drink either. I'm not sure what makes one coffee better than another and who would really care THAT much. We've got a place in newbury that makes nicer coffee than Starbucks, but their cakes are rubbish so i never use it... So what do you do as a retailer, concentrate on coffee, or cake, or.... well... You can't be amazing at everything, it's not realistic.
We have one in Yattendon that really is amazing, The Pantry... it does everything superbly, but it's in the middle of nowhere and pretty expensive, so i wonder how they do on actual numbers of customers... Tripadvisor shows a fair few who think it's too expensive, but no-one complains about the quality, just the cost.
Tricky one isn't it, lower the quality, lower the prices, potentially lose customers, or keep both high, potentially losing customers too.
Making a good cup of coffee isn’t rocket science
Yes chuck some coffee in a cup add hot water and milk. That way we don’t have to stand behind tosser, middle management, roadies called Josh or Seb as they blather away about smashing it up some minor hill whilst they wait for fifteen obscure variations on coffee (double French toast latte with cashew milk and a twist of vanilla hemp croutons for Josh as he’s not being a tosser intolerant)when I just want a cup of tea and some cake!
To a lot of people, yeah, coffee is coffee. A dark, bitter, brown soup to satisfy their caffeine drive, that tastes a little bit grim without the addition of large quantities of milk and sugar.
Thankfully coffee doesn't have to be that way. Good stuff is naturally sweet, best taken black, absolutely without sugar. There's a world of flavours, berries, stone fruits, citrus, floral..
Coffee is coffee, so then bikes are bikes? Who needs boutique hand crafted when you can get a Carrera off the peg from Halfords?
Each to their own and everything, obviously Starbucks and the like are really popular as there's 2 or 3 in every town up and down the country, but there's amazing quality independent cafes and skilled roasters popping up everywhere these days too.
You can’t be amazing at everything, it’s not realistic.
The Pantry… it does everything superbly,
Most of the above: the weekend rides tend to be an out and back via a good café. If you do offer a discount for cyclists don't undo your good work by then putting everything up by £2 across the board.....(looking at you Herdwicks!)
Coffee is coffee, so then bikes are bikes? Who needs boutique hand crafted when you can get a Carrera off the peg from Halfords?
Kinda proves your wrong though doesn't it? Off the peg carrera's are great VFM and halfords are the biggest/most successful bike retailer in the UK.
I'm not advocating shit coffee. I don't like Starbucks, Costa and Nero aren't bad apart from motorway services. Greg's isnt the strongest or nicest but at least it's consistent (nothing worse than burnt motorway coffee!).
Mid ride i want a coffee (and cake) not a condescending lecture about how I shouldn't have milk in it.
Kinda proves your wrong though doesn’t it? Off the peg carrera’s are great VFM and halfords are the biggest/most successful bike retailer in the UK.
Then why aren't we all riding Carreras? Because, while yes they may be good VFM and a successful brand, a lot of people want/need/prefer more than just a cheap run around or generic cup of coffee.
Mid ride i want a coffee (and cake) not a condescending lecture about how I shouldn’t have milk in it.
At the end of the day, the customer is always right, so a condescending lecture will only alienate people. Business 101, sell things customers want to buy. Coffee tastes vary, as do preferences in all sorts of things. It all depends to who you wish to cater for. Horses for courses and all that
Mid ride i want a coffee (and cake) not a condescending lecture about how I shouldn’t have milk in it.
Is the no-milk lecture really a thing? Genuine question, as all of the places I've been to with really great coffee have been anything but condescending.
Is the no-milk lecture really a thing? Genuine question, as all of the places I’ve been to with really great coffee have been anything but condescending.
Nah. Or, to be precise, it's never happened to me. Order drink, get drink. Tea, coffee, coke, whatever. I can't see any cafe that heckles its own customers lasting too long!
(double French toast latte with cashew milk and a twist of vanilla hemp croutons for Josh as he’s not being a tosser intolerant)
😀
So me.