price?
Same as one of mine, I need a spare, how much?
One cafe owner I know sells local crafts to top up sales. She said it's really hard work keeping the hygiene rating at number 5.
Another cafe owner in our town is a coffee shop/tea room/bakery and patisserie during the day, then during the evening another couple take it over as a gin joint, bistro affair.
The coffee shop owner nearly had a nervous breakdown a couple of years ago dealing with rude and inept staff.
I'm thinking you friend needs a few more strings to his bow other than coffee and short films.
If that is the case be aware of the licensing you may need to show films commercially.
Theres a license you can get that allows you to show any bought media publicly so long as incidental / background to the service you're offering. Its not that expensive. If you visit a cafe and something happens to be be playing that its fine with that kind of license. If you invite people / publicise on the basis that a given film is screening at a particular time then, even if you're admitting people fro free,it doesn't work for that. I've been to one or two places that have old silent B&W films showing.
Even though they are noisy places - mainly because of the noise of the coffee making - people tend to go to cafes either to think (if they're on their own) or chat so you'd not want films and dialogue that intrude on that. The noise of a cafe is a bit like the sound of fountains in city squares - its white noise that blocks out distraction. (thinks back to how difficult at was to maintain conversation in my local pub when Rita Sue and Bob Too was screening on a tv in the corner)
Art-wise. Don't bank on getting any meaningful income from it if you're not already a capable promoter of art. Some people might be flattered by an opportunity to show their etchings, maybe once in a while someone might buy one and thats nice for everyone. What you're really getting is someone gullible to decorate your cafe for free and feel like its an 'opportunity'. There'll be absolutely no shortage of takers for that. But making any money from sales and offering decent opportunities to people who exhibit is a whole different thing.
I know two people who ran coffee shops and both said that you don’t make any profit in the first 1 to 2 years.
I owned and ran a specialty coffee shop in Bath for several years.
It's very hard to make money. Decent coffee isn't very scalable - as you get bigger costs still increase dramatically.
Gross margins look good on paper, but once you factor in rent and rates (enormous in Bath, probably not as bad elsewhere) and staff costs, the margins become much slimmer.
Equipment and the aesthetics of the shop are crucial, but don't go mad. An EK43 grinder is expensive, but you can easily cope with up top 1200 coffees a week on a single one. Because you single dose with them you can run multiple coffees without the need for multiple grinders. I'd go for a used espresso machine that's in good nick - La Marzocco, Kees Van der Western and Victoria Arduino would be my top choices. Slayer and Synesso are also good but troublesome.
Water filtration is important - buy the water for coffee book by Colonna/Hendon and source the correct filtration system for your area. I wouldn't recommend RO.
You can offer quite a bit of food at an A1 location without needing to change it to A3.
Best locations are generally away from the high street, but not too far away, or, alternatively, near to a large number of businesses. Lawyers and IT types seem to be the best customers in terms of proportion who regularly drink coffee and will pay for a premium product. If you take a look on Google Maps, the most successful coffee shops are Small St (next to law courts) Baristas (near to lots of businesses, and FCP, which is right in the independent part of town.
It's not easy, and I chose not to renew my lease at the end of it, but I made some long lasting friends and really enjoyed it when things were going well (less so when it wasn't, but that's life).
JP
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