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For the past few years I've spent my days working in an industry I no longer want to be in. At the same time I've been tentatively thinking about opening a coffee shop. Recently it's something I'm getting more and more excited about, but I'm not sure I'll ever be able to finance it. I have a hypothetical list of suppliers, rent, outgoings and have read that something around £30k is needed to get off the ground.
We have some meagre savings I can use, but I'm not likely to be made redundant nor do we have any wind-fall coming our way that we know of.
Is there anyone here that's done something similar with little capital? How did you go about financing?
Hmmm, just re-read my post. Don't mean to offend anyone who's been made redundant. Didn't really think about that before posting.
[url= http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/long-shot-how-much-to-open-a-coffee-shop-opened-today ]http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/long-shot-how-much-to-open-a-coffee-shop-opened-today[/url] This is not a skam link.
My sister started up and ran a coffee shop for about 12 months or so. She definitely didn't have £30K capital though. She bought the coffee machine and crockery, cutlery etc 2nd hand. She had quite a lot of business but after a year she hadn't broken even and decided to call it a day. The lady who owns and runs a small but successful coffee shop near me advised that you shouldn't expect to make any money for the first 2 years.
Thanks for the link - interesting stuff there. Yeah, I've spoken to someone who offers barista training about starting the business and he reckons there's an 18 month period to break even.
I work hard at the moment, rarely see my kids in the week but feel I'm not seeing any benefit of it. We don't have a lavish lifestyle so I'm not looking for it to be a cash-cow but we still need to pay bills. My wife would still have a full time job though so there would be guaranteed income.
add rent /rates/insurance/staff costs/electric/gas/stock/repairs/equipment your wages and more together.
Now divide by number of days youre going to be open, and now by number of hours per day, and you have a cost per hour, now how many cups of [s]flavoured water[/s] coffee do you have to sell to make any cash.
our local greasy spoon cafe just got closed down after a few months, despite a good customer location.
hm. have friend here locally who always had ambitions to open coffee shop / bistro type place. That he's done, can't believe it really makes a wedge of cash as the location is just slightly too far out of town and not exactly convenient. Does have some plus points, and I try and support it. But just don't have the easy opportunity to do so (bit like LBS and that discussion!)
Well, I just bought two coffees from Starbucks and it cost me £7.40, so there's certainly money to be had from selling paper cups of mostly hot water.
Id suggest more importantly that you go and become a barista for a year, manage someone's else's coffee shop. Learn the trade, gain expereince
Ten years ago I started a veggi cafe doing lunches, coffee etc and cakes. We thought it looked do-able based on being avid customers, did a bit of research talked to a few folk we knew who ran cafes etc.
Lasted 18 months, made very little money, had very little holiday, got quite stressed. The bottom line is that there is not a lot of money in catering; standard model is 33% raw materials, 33% overheads (staff, rent, fuel, consumables, admin etc) 33% profit (that's your cut). You need to add all this up before you set your prices, or you'll struggle. You'll also then notice that your prices are considerably higher than you thought, and everyone is undercutting you! How do they do it? - there's high start up failure rate that's how.
Advice? neither a caterer nor a retailer be.....
If you go for it, pay someone to do any staff admin (payroll, NI stuff) and accounts for you; this is an additional overhead, but without it you'll be up til ten every night working and your life outside of work will disappear.
http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/long-shot-how-much-to-open-a-coffee-shop-opened-today This is not a skam link.
Anyone know how they're doing 4 years on?
you shouldn't expect to make any money for the first 2 years.
This is often said by those in business that shouldn't be.
Rather than start in a fixed location, why not have some type of mobile outfit and deliver super trendy coffee and cakes to the large offices. Lower fixed costs, plus higher prices, bingo
Every other shop in town seems to be a coffee shop or contain a coffee shop. I'd have thought that the ideal opportunity to make a living from this was a few years ago.
Interesting thread. There's a small shop say 10m2 in total on the corner of our road about 50yrds away from home. I've often though of renting it and owning a takeaway coffee / pastry - and pre 11am - bacon roll shop. Im sure it'd get business from the local shops around us, and is on a main road / walk within 6 minutes of a mainline station into London.
It'd also front for my wife's cake making for occasions skills.
Rather than start in a fixed location, why not have some type of mobile outfit and deliver super trendy coffee and cakes to the large offices. Lower fixed costs, plus higher prices, bingo
Smaller barrier to entry = more competition.
Our business park is inundated with mobile coffee / sandwich vans, most don't last very long, only one company has lasted as long as I've been working there (10+ years).
Vintage tea rooms are the niche in the West Mids. Decent brews and good home made cake and sandwiches make me a happy guy.
Love to do the same but seeing comments is definitely putting me off.
Footflaps: the website is up and the Twitter account seems happy and active so...sounds like good news!
http://thefourteas.co.uk
@thefourteas on Twitter
Footflaps: the website is up and the Twitter account seems happy and active so...sounds like good news!
Pretty sure that's not the same place - the one in the link is in Cholsey, and a quick google says they sold up a couple of years ago 🙁
If you don't see your kids now you will see them less running a small retail business, 7 day opening to try & make a profit, outside of opening hours its book work & organising suppliers. Will you take holidays? They'll be unpaid or cost extra as you'll need to pay someone you trust to be there & run it if you're not.also who runs it when you're ill? I did similar for 8 years & i wouldn't go back into that sort of self employment
Hi, that coffee shop thread was me. It still exists and is doing well but under the name the cholsey cafe.
We sold it after two years as we had two children and needed to be near the grandparents. Otherwise we'd still have it. In the future we'll do it again.
Happy to answer any questions. There's lots of simple stuff you need to do to make sure it's profitable. Or put another way, you can lose all your profit very quickly if you don't. Email is Robert underscore scarrott at Hotmail dotty com.
And we made a profit in the first year and every month after. But it's all down to a few factors which you really need to get right (location, stock, staffing, customer service). Otherwise you're screwed 🙂
geoffj - I disagree. The woman who told me that actually makes the best coffee in town, freshly made sandwiches to order, and has a successful business that's been going for about 11 years. I choose her little cafe over all the others in town (of which there are many)
geoffj - I disagree. The woman who told me that actually makes the best coffee in town, freshly made sandwiches to order, and has a successful business that's been going for about 11 years. I choose her little cafe over all the others in town (of which there are many)
Good for her, but suggesting that it's normal to not make any money in the first 2 years is bad advice.
Cougar - Moderator
Well, I just bought two coffees from Starbucks and it cost me £7.40, so there's certainly money to be had from selling paper cups of mostly hot water
[img]
[/img]A good explanation of the costs involved in service people.
The don't expect to make money in the first 2 years is fairly sound, if you can pay off your investment in year one then build in year 2 you might make a profit over paying yourself more than minimum wage.
mobile artisan with a license for a local business park is the way to go
Rob, glad you made it work. I replied to your first thread offering the advice of a good friend who had just done the same thing around that time, Devina. She finally managed to sell up a couple of weeks ago after nearly five years of no personal time, barely any profit and some pretty nasty local competitors. She's glad to be rid.
Lee - yes I remember! It's certainly hard work!
Hi, that coffee shop thread was me. It still exists and is doing well but under the name the cholsey cafe.We sold it after two years as we had two children and needed to be near the grandparents. Otherwise we'd still have it. In the future we'll do it again.
Congrats on making it work!
mobile artisan with a license for a local business park is the way to go
You won't get exclusivity and just find you're on of many local artisans competing on price with each other for a limited market. We have about 7 vans on our park every day, some only sell one of two coffees per visit and will go bust soon...
We had a lovely local cafe on our street, but the couple sold up after a couple of years. He'd had a nervous breakdown as he was working from 6am till 10pm most days- he cooked all day and baked everything in the evenings for the next day. He was a control freak and found it very hard to allow anyone else into his kitchen to help him cook. The food was always excellent and for an indie greasy spoon you had to book a table in advance for Sunday breakfast, they'd be completely rammed from 9am-3pm when they shut.
The new owners took over, opened for a week, closed and went on holiday for 2 weeks, re-opened, hired one of the old owners to show them the ropes, they couldn't cook or bake, made truly terrible coffee, got flustered when there were more than 2 people in the queue, put their prices up by 15%, fell out with all the old staff who were great and knew all the locals by name and their favourites/usual drinks/milk sugar details etc You can walk in on a Sunday now and get a seat, any seat any time of the day...
Interesting thread. There's a small shop say 10m2 in total on the corner of our road about 50yrds away from home. I've often though of renting it and owning a takeaway coffee / pastry - and pre 11am - bacon roll shop. Im sure it'd get business from the local shops around us, and is on a main road / walk within 6 minutes of a mainline station into London.It'd also front for my wife's cake making for occasions skills.
Worth a quick peek. Not sure of your location, but it can be done. The owner closed it after doing very well and now does pop-up coffee shops around Norwich:
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g186342-d1902312-Reviews-The_Window-Norwich_Norfolk_East_Anglia_England.html
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/norwich_s_smallest_coffee_shop_to_close_1_4169206
http://www.thewindowcoffee.com
Hmmm ... reading with interest as I wanted to do this many years ago but the rate and rent are too expensive for me.
Local guy I know started with a little van in the local business park, that ended up doing sandwiches etc and then spread to another business park. He sold it and had enough money for a costa franchise. He built that up and in 3 years sold it for £2.1m to another franchisee for Costa.
He spends his days biking and travelling now but the story took 15 years in total.