Sandwich Bar

[verseone]

Hello,
Im in the process of selling a retail business, fingers crossed it goes through , I am interested in opening a sandwich bar, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I have worked in a sandwich bar before , about 7 years ago , so I assume there are a lot of things I need to get to grips with. :)

[epiphany]

Make sure your bacon is crispy!

[Romperstomper]

I've never run a sandwich bar but I do eat food from one so here's my thoughts.... a customer's eye view.

My office is in a street in which there are four big offices in total with about 4,000 staff. Within 100 yards there are 5 sandwich shops and 2 newsagents that sell sandwiches amongst their many wares. 2 of the shops have queues of customers every day, the other shops don't.

The shops with queues both are relatively large and have space for about a dozen or more customers (sometimes hiding from the rain while they wait). They both have large counters and have 4 or 5 staff manning the counters.

The shops without queues are generally smaller with space for only one or two members of staff.

The successful shops cater for two different markets. One sells relatively cheap baguettes preprepared (about £1.75 each) and stacked in cold cabinets (it also makes up fresh ones if you want to wait) and has mostly male customers. The other successful shop is much more expensive (about £2.70 each) but makes up every baguette or roll freshly from top of the range ingredients.

All the unsuccessful shops are priced between the two successful shops.

So what is the moral of the story?

Get a shop that can hold at least a ten waiting customers and can have about 4 staff serving constantly. Either go for the top of the market with high quality and high prices or go for stack'em high sell 'em cheap.

Don't go mid-price with a small shop or no-one will shop there.

well it's only an opinion but hopefully valid...

[Ian J]

I used to have a sandwich bar 20 years ago and most of it is common sense. Location is highly important and you just have to give the customer what they want, quickly, efficiently and cleanly

[james constant FCCA]

Hi

I have a few clients into this business and I think the following might be of relevance to you too:

You may have to go to work very early and close quite late because you dont want to lose a lot of customers that eat quite late. Depends on location really and the demographics of the area eg high rate of sudents or batchelors?

If above point applies to you, you may have difficulty attracting staff that are prepared to work under those conditions. One of my clients solved the problem by employing East European girls. Another copes using a different method, which I am not prepared to disclose publicly!

Also, there are special very important income tax attention points (pitfallls and ooportuities) for businesses like this.

Also, VAT registartion might be desirable at the ouset even if your trunover is below the threshold, depending on the make up and mixture of your products.

Also, if you carry out set up expenditure, eg improvements, buildign work etc, make sure that you claim all your capital tax depereciation allowances as some people dont (they treat all expenditure as improvemtns that doesnt get any CA). You will need clear description of work breakdown invoices to prove any claim to the taxman.

Hope this helps
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