posted ago by catchlightning
+22 / -0
Using Stocking Mill's coffee blends and my friend's homemade Turkish coffee blends. His dad is a professor at the local University and is interested in investing in this idea. Still in a very preliminary stage of discussion. I already rent a storefront right on a major highway coming into town, that has a perfect setup for a drive thru. Will require work to get up to code for food service, but I think there's huge potential. Thoughts?
Do it! Just make sure it's quality. People will pay a little extra for something that's not shit. Looks at the offerings of other coffee companies, like the big guys. That can help you understand how to do things to make money.
Still uncertain how I'd price things, but I know I'd definitely stock prepackaged pastries like brownies and honey buns and other snacks. The main focus is of course early morning easy coffee.
One thing I know for certain is that you can't do it alone. I've tried. It's an impossible task. You need someone (you) to run the business (books, stock, payroll, etc) and others to actually run the operation (cooking, coffee, serving customers). You might be able to do it alone for a short time, but you'll need to hire at least 3 others (two to focus on customers - serving and making coffee, and another to focus on making food). Otherwise, quality AND efficiency will suffer. No one wants to wait 15-20 minutes for a coffee and brownie. You're coffee won't be THAT good. Speed speed speed is the name of the game. More customers you can serve in an hour is more profit. There might be a 3 hours window where you make all of your money of the day.
Spend some time going around to other coffee shops, small and large, and just observe how they operate. Look at the equipment they use. TurboChef is a must if you plan on serving hot foods.
Good luck!
Definitely, my friend has his food service certification already and we will start the cafe primarily as a partnership with his father helping with investment. I plan to use Squareup to handle sales and automatically track the books.
I used to work on the carnival with my dad, so I totally understand the necessity of being prepared for the rush. Hot food is on the longer-term plan, as the main point is quick coffee from Patriots FOR Patriots, but definitely in the cards.
I love it. Start small, prove the idea, and scale up.
Patriot's Place Coffee Club!
Great idea! FYI, my line of work is to review development proposals. Do yourself a favor and get your hands on planning/zoning codes and standard engineer drawings to better understand what will be required. Make sure you have the "stacking" needed (# of cars @ drive thru window) that do not impede parking stalls and drive aisles in your parking lot. Vehicle circulation is important! Argue to count the car waiting at the window if they flip you BS about it. Make sure there is enough room for ingress/egress near an intersection if that applies. Sounds like you are operating there now so the fire dept. should not have issues. Fight for creative solutions if the city is reluctant on approval!
The shop is just far enough outside the city to avoid being subject to city zoning rules! The local township is really lenient. My landlord at the store is also a contractor/electrician and would probably help out with shit too. He's a genuine good dude and really wants to see me successful with his building.
Well that sounds perfect! All the best to you pede.
Don't ignore online sales too. You could get a lot of money from that.
Yep, I already have a small stock left of Trump stuff, sales have slowed down - but I think will bounce back after we win. I also want to do custom apparel (with vinyl cutter, sublimation printer, heat transfer press) but I think that's a little further down the road. The drive thru cafe in a premium location will be the primary moneymaker methinks.
The best of luck, Keep us posted ok?
Has to be decent coffee consistently. It has to be open at the time coffee is usually consumed, and drive thru idea is great. Make it easy for people to pay, and a reward system for purchases is good incentive to keep going back. Good luck!!!
I thought about using Burger King's "Coffee Subscription" idea after things get going. People can pay for a monthly subscription for 1 free coffee per day and then will likely purchase breakfast etc while stopping as well.
As for time, Yeah will have to get up at like 3 or 4 AM and get the coffeepots going.
Being a small business owner myself I realized you have to put yourself in your customers shoes. What would make me come back? Quality, and service essentially thats it. There are many things like getting up early that suck, but the alternative of making money for someone else is worse in my opinion. I feel that you will excel and understand that you can get help, you will not have to be there every moment at some point, just train to the best you can and hold them accountable.
Also offer some sort of food - do prepacked at first just to lessen the permitting.
Maybe team up with an established small bakery that is willing to package.
Being able to work with local businesses is definitely a long-term goal - whether for prepackaged foodstuff or local artists/crafts/hobbyists. Being able to have a section for "Local Talent" would strengthen the patriotic community in a powerful way.
Great idea! Get a strong social media game going right out the door. Before you go for a subscription model or reward card, you can give people a discount for taking a selfie with their coffee or posting a review with their coffee on social media and tagging you :-).
Find out who the google local guides are in your area, and when you see a local guide post a review be sure to reply and interact with them. You should reply to every review, but local guide ones especially since their opinions have a lot of traction.
When it comes to available snacks/foods, try to have some options available for people like me that don't eat carbs :-). I love finding coffee shops and businesses that have other snacks like low carb protein bars and jerkies.
And don't forget hot chocolate and tea, some of us don't drink coffee. If you have in store space for one, having a cold case with sodas, juices and energy drinks is a good idea. Bang is a good energy drink company. The coffee shops I have gone out of my way to go to various places offer all kinds of drinks, and I take advantage of that when out and about.
You guys are all giving me extremely good advice and suggestions, and every single one is appreciated and taken to heart!
Well our business is dead now, after 30+ years in business. Oh, well. Time for a new location, and a new business lol.
One of the best local "coffee shops" I ran into last time hubby and I were on the road was in a small town I can't remember the name of now. In Montana. About a 14 by 20 building at most, really tiny. The hot options were coffee, tea and real hot chocolate not that packet crap (pricey but worth it). Cold fresh option was huckleberry smoothies. 3 tables inside, 3 outside.
But dang they did it right with the cold cases. They had deli sandwiches from a local deli, baked goods from a local bakery, boxed salads, a full assortment of cold drinks. They also had a hot case with jojos, chicken tenders and other stuff they cooked there as needed. It was amazing. Their grill was the smallest I have seen commercial wise, same with the fryer. But dang they made good chicken tenders and burgers....While we were sitting there I would say about half the people that came through used their drive through and the rest parked and picked up stuff, and they were busy for how rural it was, about 10 customers in less than an hour. Not bad at all for middle of nowhere. Before we left we grabbed a couple of boxed salads for later in the day and cold drinks.
They had a combination motel and bait shop on one side of their lot, and a gas station grocery store on the other. It made sense since the nearest bigger grocery store was probably 40 miles away.
Great idea! :)
Also worth mentioning, I have several years of experience in both food service and retail sales (ex Little Caesars, Grocery Stores, Carnival Food/Sales) so I definitely feel confident that I can make this work.