Cafe opening times & alcohol licence

[Sintija]

Hello.
I have been running a cafe for a year. Good location, (town centre) 25 seats. Selling breakfast, burgers, chips, paninis etc. Working hours are 8-4pm
We (me and my partner) are thinking of keeping the place open until 8pm and add more main meals, deserts etc. Can you please tell your experience on opening late and changing working hours? Transfer cafe to more like a restaurant. That way we are hoping to increase the sales.
Also we have thought on getting the alcohol licence, can you tell your experience on it? Is it worth it? I know it would cost about £2000, but how it would change our sales? Maybe someone has experience?

Thank you
Sintija!

 

[sminter1st]

I apologise in advance as I am just drinking my first coffee, so these are my non-caffeinated thoughts! I can only speak from personal experience (I have a licensed restaurant, I'm the personal licence holder, we previously had a takeaway unlicensed.) I think it depends very much on your local council and your relationship with your neighbours, and whether you have much residential property in your area that may be disturbed by excessive alcohol drinking, in which case you may get objections to your proposal. However an alcohol licence can only be rejected if there are reasonable grounds, so it's all about planning. Once one of you have obtained your own personal licence, and you apply for your premises licence, you need to think about the processes you need in place, specifically controlling anti-social behaviour (usually straightforward if you're also serving food) and about your system of checking under-age drinking. You can search online on your council's planning permission website to see local applications for examples and objections as guidance.

You need to think about how you will staff the extra hours. Do you have a quiet time of the day when it might be worth closing for a couple of hours? That's what we do, although we open until 10.30pm so need that break in the middle to recharge. It depends how many staff you have, or if you and family/partner solely staff the cafe. Do you have other nearby restaurants/cafes/takeaways? Are they busy? Do they offer the same as you in the evening? Have you sat in your cafe after you close to see how many people are walking past during the hours you want to open? Have you talked to your current customers about their opinions? Do you have a Facebook page/social media where you can get feedback/advertise?

At the end of the day, the longer hours you open, the more sales you will get. It may be an idea to sit down and work out your extra costs for those opening hours (staff, electricity) and think how much you need to sell to cover those. Do you have some capital to invest in stocking a bar initially? Is it worth only opening until 8? You may find if you're going to open late you need to be open until around 9.30 as lots of people want to eat around 7-8pm.

I'm sure someone will be along with more specific advice! Just trying to think of all the things we tried to consider when we opened a year or so ago.

 

[Scalloway]

From my experience of the restaurant trade what you need are customers who will have a few drinks before, during and after their meal. People will only eat one meal but they can have multiple drinks.