Help needed - Failing coffee shop

[Chris Ashdown]

The OP has a market stall with competition in the next stall. we do not even know if he can sell hot food, he has tried cake and just waste to much to make a profit

Also has not come back since opening the post or at least not replied to anyone

 

[Ava Williams]

How is your business brand? Was one established before you purchased it? Branding is extremely important. It has been proven that consumers will pay a premium price for a brand. Perhaps you could invest some money into that before purchasing a new machine.

 

[Newchodge]

I am not sure that a brand on a market stall selling coffee and, sometimes, cake, is going to make an awful lot of difference.

 

[ValleysGuy1975]

Hi guys

Sorry haven't replied in a while but being trying to save the business although must say this week has been awful.

Yes I could do hot food but would have to install some kind of extraction system if I were to go down that route.

Not totally against in putting more investment into the business if it going to work.

One of the other stalls next door to me (one of the greasy spoons) had an espresso machine delivered this morning, so am worried that my be the final nail in my coffin. I sincerely hope not

 

[Alan]

had an espresso machine delivered this morning

Oh dear!

 

[downsouth]

Yes I could do hot food but would have to install some kind of extraction system if I were to go down that route.
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One of the other stalls next door to me (one of the greasy spoons) had an espresso machine delivered this morning, so am worried that my be the final nail in my coffin. I sincerely hope not

It seems time and the tide is against you, and as we know it waits for no man

how do you honestly feel about calling it a day?

we are a supportive bunch on here and always give the honest opinion and its easy to keep investing personally (and emotionally) into a business but unless you have a solid and realistic business plan all you may end up doing is throwing money away, the 2 items you mention are good for a few thousand minimum.

 

[Mike EMF Business]

Do you have your website? It might sound silly as this is just the coffee shop but it could help you a bit in marketing i.e.. to let people know what you have...
If you do not I can offer to make it for free as I am just starting my business and need to build the portfolio so iI can help at the same time
regards

 

[Alan]

What is it with this forum and desperate web designers pushing websites? Come on, it does sound silly.

 

[ValleysGuy1975]

The honest answer is that I can't afford to lose £4K but at same time don't really want to be putting another £2-£3k into it if it not going to help.

I have put it back on the market to see what interest I get.

Am giving that until end of Jan and then take it from there.

Yes had considered marketing/leaflets/website but again that is outlay if it not going to work.

I want to stay positive but also agree I need to be realistic.

I like the idea of being self employed but think I have made the wrong decision on this one. Just worried I won't take a risk again and instead go back into a paye job that I not really happy with.

 

[Alan]

Its good to fail. And it is even better to fail quickly. Try and sell the business and work on teh next plan.

 

[joneyy556]

all business needs verities if you need a great response so plz use verity of products

 

[webgeek]

Try a large format sign with a challenge: Take the Taste Test - and let people decide whose coffee and service is best. Give anyone who participates a free something or another and see how it goes. Even if they don't return, it's often enough to make people want to try your brand. Have some rating cards where they put their email, rating and drop in a fishbowl for a prize draw.

Note: This idea is not original - the last time I saw it, it was Coke vs Pepsi.

The other thing is free samples of desserts, bite sized. People love a free bit of sweetie and will need a drink to wash it down.

The alternative approach is a 20p flat white, filter coffee, or builders tea. Then offer promo cold sandwiches that are easy to premake and have good margins. Coffee gets them in, sandwiches pay the rent.

See how your neighbour does trying to keep up with an espresso machine while you're churning out filter coffee 10x the pace and 1/3rd the price

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Like the filter coffee as long as kept fresh and not stale

The question is can you make enough to pay your wages in the near future and can you meet up with the competition and see if there is any common ground to work together. In Great yarmouth all the chip stalls on the market about 12 all charge the same prices, every one knows it's fixed but who is going to be bothered to try and prove it

 

[garyk]

How is your business brand? Was one established before you purchased it? Branding is extremely important. It has been proven that consumers will pay a premium price for a brand. Perhaps you could invest some money into that before purchasing a new machine.

But whats the point of a brand if you are selling instant coffee???

Brand is the last thing the OP needs to worry about. Its back to basics, focusing on quality goods.

 

[STDFR33]

The greasy spoon is not a competitor.

Stand out from the crowd.

They will do the usual beef / ham /turkey sandwiches with or without salad. *boring*.

Offer something more interesting.

A couple of ideas:-

1. Ham with applewood smoked cheddar and salad.
2. Beef and onion with a beetroot and horseradish chutney.
3. Salted beef with a creamy dressing.
4. Spicy chicken tikka with a cool raita sauce.

Offer each sandwich you serve with different breads.

As well as doing proper tea and coffee, you should stock good quality fruit juices in addition to small selection of cans of pop.

If you try doing the usual sandwiches you will fail.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

As you are not allowed hot food as such without a extractor fan, what about hot dogs they can be either boiled in water, Grilled or microwaved and offer good profit and bypass the need for extractor fans, you can buy hot water trays to keep as a ready supply, just make sure the sausage is good quality and good choice of compliments

 

[Newchodge]

As you are not allowed hot food as such without a extractor fan, what about hot dogs they can be either boiled in water, Grilled or microwaved and offer good profit and bypass the need for extractor fans, you can buy hot water trays to keep as a ready supply, just make sure the sausage is good quality and good choice of compliments

You may want some condiments as well, if you want to get the compliments. (sorry)

 

[webgeek]

Many years ago, I managed a fast food restaurant, in a mall food court with multiple choices available AND with another restaurant in our chain directly across the street in the food court there. It was more established, had a much larger take, size of footfall and generally was the 800 pound gorilla, at first.

We put twice as many people on the register, compared to what we 'should have', and overportioned our food by nearly 50%. If you wanted a burrito and bought one across the street, and from us, and compared, it was staggering - loaded with meat and cheese. We made ours up just an hour before people arrived, instead of 3 hours before, like the competition, so our tacos and taco salads had crunchy fresh lettuce and tomato that hadn't soured. In short, our quality of product and size of portions absolutely devastated the competing store.

By doubling the people on the register, improving the layout of the kitchen, premaking as much as possible that would keep well - our service time was less than half of the competition. We were doing $400/hour per kitchen staff which was considered a blazing pace that couldn't be matched within our chain.

Of course our food cost was higher and profit percentage lower, but our top line sales growth broke every record the chain had ever seen. It was enough to qualify for an all expense paid trip to the Bahamas that year in recognition.

Sell a faster cup of coffee, a fresher cup of coffee, bigger cup of coffee and a cheaper cup of coffee. Get 2 out of 4 and you'll be fine. Get 3 out of 4 and you'll be swamped with customers. Get 4 out of 4 and who knows...

My points are rather simple
1) Speed kills. It kills the competition!
2) Quality kills the competition!
3) Overportioning can kill!

Sometimes less profit percentage is a winner by simply tweaking your operation a bit and delivering massive sales gains.

 

[Melon]

I'm not a coffee drinker so can't help you with that. But try to think outside the box a little bit.

Have you considered making crepes/pancakes? A 5 second google shows a crepe machine costing £300ish. Coffee and crepes! I can't see that needing an extractor fan?

And as others have suggested, hot chocolate would be very popular, especially over the winter. You could offer different flavours - chocolate orange, mint chocolate etc etc

 

[Ian J]

Have you considered making crepes/pancakes? A 5 second google shows a crepe machine costing £300ish. Coffee and crepes! I can't see that needing an extractor fan?

And as others have suggested, hot chocolate would be very popular, especially over the winter. You could offer different flavours - chocolate orange, mint chocolate etc etc

It depends on his customer profile as crepes and hot chocolate would appeal mainly to women and a £300 crepe maker would cause all sorts of bottlenecks if there was more than one customer at a time

 

[ethical PR]

If you are going to give it a go, I don't think a couple of weeks would be enough to turn it around.

I think you would need to invest in a decent machine to make coffee and then concentrate on offering some locally made cakes and goodies (not available nearby) and as mentioned above a few really good sandwiches on really nice bread.

Don't worry about hot food at the moment, make a couple of really nice homemade soups which you change every week that people can walk around with as they visit the market.

Keep it simple. Go out in the market and locally every day with samples of coffee and goodies with a voucher offering discounts.

Offer a discount to market stall holders and go around offer them free coffee every morning, if they will give out your flyers with purchases.

You don't need to invest in a website or lots of literature at this stage.

Perhaps a facebook which will take you minutes to set up.

Get your family and friends to like it and ask customers to post photos of them enjoying your fare.

Run a competition for customers to design a sandwich and name the winning one after the customer and offer them a free weekly sandwich for a month or two.

Run promotions each day and a free sandwich or cake to the first person to come along by a certain time (take a photo of them with their prize and get them to share on their social media)

Before you do any of this run your budget - how much will you need to invest, what are you turning over at the moment? what do you estimate you could turn over with improvements.

Can you afford to invest in what you need and run it for a good few months? if not you may need to make a tough decision to close.

 

[Mitch3473]

Think slightly outside the box, you have the facilities to make decent coffee, cakes and sandwiches, samosas, crepes, waffles etc etc.....Offer a delivery service to the local traders, shops, offices, take a tray of sarnies and cakes with you on your delivery.........loyalty cards, vouchers, up coming offers, regular change of menu. As a poster has suggested, go out with a tray of sample goodies to joe public. Everybody eats and drinks. 4 pages in, dont give up.....

 

[ValleysGuy1975]

Hi guys.

Sorry for late reply but just returned (22:30) from my other job. Yes two jobs, but only till Sunday.

I truly don't want to give up but am finding it hard when I am going home with a gross profit of £2.13 which I did actually do one day this week.

I will certainly digest some of your ideas and see where I go from here.

Have found some reasonable new small scale espresso machines for around £590+vat which would certainly fit the bill, at least for now.

Had also considered the hot dog idea so might go down that route, plus changing my cold display fridge for a hot one to do sausage rolls and pasties so that there is "grab food" for people that don't want to wait. (Has anyone got one of these in their store to give me an idea of how long they can stay in one of those etc?)

Am also going to look into the leaflets etc and doing a Facebook page.

Thanks everyone it is much appreciated. Maybe once I am on the stall full time from next week my motivation will return.
Xx

 

[Scott@KarmaContent]

I don't know what sort of market your place is based in but if it is anything like the markets I've been to where I live (and if it's in South Wales I suspect it is) then I imagine you're going to be looking at an older demographic who don't have a huge amount of money to spend so fancy coffees and the like may not be the answer.

My local cafe does a roaring trade with pensioners by offering £4.99 two course meals with a coffee or tea. For your £4.99 you get a meal like a chicken dinner (roast chicken, mash, veg and gravy) and a basic pudding (cake and custard). It's not Michelin Star quality but it's good plain food which lots of people like. Maybe you could think about offering a limited range of value for money hot food?

Anyway, best of luck whatever you decide do and I hope it all works out for you.

 

[Talay]

I don't know what sort of market your place is based in but if it is anything like the markets I've been to where I live (and if it's in South Wales I suspect it is) then I imagine you're going to be looking at an older demographic who don't have a huge amount of money to spend so fancy coffees and the like may not be the answer.
....

Though not in the coffee and cake business, a company I bought had two branches in areas with a poor demographic and from experience, trying to make a go of them in such areas takes so much time and effort for rewards which are intrinsically linked to the relative poverty therein means that I closed both the week after I took over their business.

Historically I have tried to turn such units around and though I have managed to make them profitable against losing money, they still required so much micro management that my time was spent on them when it should have been spent on building the core business.

Harsh but true and I know different if it is your only business baby but if you are swapping out a wage to do this as a business then you need to ask whether this enterprise can provide you with the £25/50/100k or whatever you are giving up to run it ? If it cannot, then cut your losses and go back to work, building upon this knowledge and come back far better prepared next time.

 

[RealDealHolidays]

Why don't you try advertising on groupon or wowcher ive seen coffee shops on there before and if your already losing you have nothing more to lose. Or alliancing yourselfves with other businesses? Even thinking outside of the box by doing a deal with other stalls where if a guy buys i dont know say fruit..they get a voucher for £1 off something from your store? think outside the box

 

[Karimbo]

I go to car boot sales and markets regularly and I occasionally see stalls with what look like expensive coffee machines where just coffee is served. However, I must say, they are there once or maybe twice and that is it - they never come again. When I first saw them, I thought why haven't anybody thought of that before as I thought it was a good idea, but obviously the model does not work or else I would see coffee stalls there all the time. I have not seen any coffee stalls for well over a year now.

I think possibly there is just not enough turnover. The traditional burger and sandwich vans seem to do well though.

possibly just part timers with jobs 9-5 who just sell coffee on the weekends on heavy footfall market traffic/football fan traffic - seems smart.

That's the difficulty with this market, barriers to trade are nonexistent, anyone can buy a mobile coffee shop and just hawking coffee anywhere. Seems smart - for someone on a fixed income salary who invested in a coffee machine - making just £100 profit on a saturday is a very good deal for them. If you're a coffee shop these are probably a sore sight.

 

[ecommerce84]

My first thought is that you have to replace the instant coffee - even basic filter coffee would be a good step up before investing in an expensive coffee machine.

I would look at replacing the paninis if they aren't selling, but at this time of year especially you need hot options. Do you have the facilities to make soup? Homemade soup is always a winner, it's cheap and easy to make and can be kept warm in a soup kettle (which cost £30) to be served as soon as they are ordered.

Toasted tea cakes are another easy option. Large frozen toasted tea cakes cost about 20p from the cash and carry and you might consider a tea cake and tea/coffee deal for £2.50 or similar?

They also do frozen cakes which are pre sliced - you could simply defrost a few slices at a time rather than wasting 75% of a cake everyday. In fact you could defrost a few slices of different cake so there is a choice.

Get some crisps in and consider doing a 'meal deal' - with a sandwich and coffee.

My gut instinct for you is that rather than trying to go down a Costa style route, I'd be going for more of a Greggs style offering.

Good luck.

 

[Ava Williams]

But whats the point of a brand if you are selling instant coffee???

Brand is the last thing the OP needs to worry about. Its back to basics, focusing on quality goods.

Right; people pay £185 for Air Jordan shoes because of the quality. <heavy sarcasm>

 

[Karimbo]

Coffee has to taste decent enough for people to pay more than that 60p coffee place or a £1.10 mcdonalds coffee.

But you cannot touch anywhere near costa/starbucks prices simply because you don't have the addons they provide (namely a place to sit for 4 hours at a time.

 

[Karimbo]

costa/stabucks coffee isn't quality at all. It's the same as mcdonalds coffee.

 

[Newchodge]

I have, very occasionally, tasted Costa and Starbucks coffee. It isn't worthy of the name coffee. It is weak, has little flavour and is overpowered by the milk. A decent filter coffee, made with decent ground coffee, and with a dash of milk if the customer wants it, is what I look for. I don't get it on the High Street.

 

[STDFR33]

I have, very occasionally, tasted Costa and Starbucks coffee. It isn't worthy of the name coffee. It is weak, has little flavour and is overpowered by the milk. A decent filter coffee, made with decent ground coffee, and with a dash of milk if the customer wants it, is what I look for. I don't get it on the High Street.

I've only been to Costa once.

£17 for two cheese toasties and two crap coffees.

This is local to me and seems to do very well. All of the food and drinks it does are very nice, and there's nothing else like it in the area
https://m.facebook.com/bakemydayee/?locale2=en_GB

 

[Karimbo]

there was a food secrets programme on the beeb or ch4 (cant rememebr). The exposed something about the big coffee chain. Then tend to dark roast their coffee almost burning them. But dark roasting they can get a more consistent flavour that tastes the same all the time. Most independant/artisan coffee medium roast their beans so they have a smoother flavour but isn't very consistent and will taste slightly different from one batch to the next.

You can also pick up different notes from the artisan coffee. On chain coffee it isn.t

 

[Newchodge]

They may dark roast their coffee, but as far as I can see they then waft the ground coffee through the hot water for about 3 seconds, producing the completely non-coffee, but consistent flavour of dishwater they supply.

 

[Karimbo]

They may dark roast their coffee, but as far as I can see they then waft the ground coffee through the hot water for about 3 seconds, producing the completely non-coffee, but consistent flavour of dishwater they supply.

the latte is very very diluted. i normally have cappuchino. I tried a latte once and I may have just ordered a hot milk.

 

[garyk]

Right; people pay £185 for Air Jordan shoes because of the quality. <heavy sarcasm>

You're comparing Nike (started in 1964) with a recently started coffee stall???

Branding is important sure, *but not at this stage*

Please use some common sense.

 

[ValleysGuy1975]

I am starting to think I should set myself a spend limit and a time limit. Maybe £2k and 3-6 months. Least then I will feel i have given it my best effort.

If anyone does actually run a coffee shop please do get in touch

 

[Ally Maxwell]

I am starting to think I should set myself a spend limit and a time limit. Maybe £2k and 3-6 months. Least then I will feel i have given it my best effort.

If anyone does actually run a coffee shop please do get in touch

I don't any more but about 7 years ago I bought a closed down café, re-opened it and built it back up to the point of resale in 2 years. There are several differences between my situation and yours ( I had the facilities/extraction etc required for hot food prep).

You've had a few bits of good advice on this thread though (and some utter tripe to be fair).

First, what coffee machinery do you have ? I had an instanta instant boiler with a steam wand (bloody powerful thing). I actually made cappuccino/latte type drinks with steamed milk and instant coffee (Cart Noir) and regularly had people tell me how great it was.

Concentrate on simple things like soups (homemade), toasties, filled rolls, cakes etc. make your place bright, be outgoing and friendly, set a range of stuff, display it clearly on posters, menus, adapt to what you get asked for, be proactive about getting people in to your unit (have someone walk about with A5 flyers with deals for soup/sandwich, coffee/sandwich etc. Don't sit with your face tripping you, reading the paper. Get out and get people in using the power of enthusiasm and chat, rather than just hoping things will change.

 

[smallclaimsassistance]

USP. That's it. Nothing more.

Survey the immediate area. Decide what, in your field, is NOT on offer, that you consider your demographic target clientele would buy.

That's what you offer.

Given what you have said, I suspect it's freshly ground coffee, home-made cakes, muffins and biscuits, and sandwiches made fresh, and to order. Costa don't do that and it sounds like your competitor doesn't do that.

Good luck.

Dean