How You Can Open And Operate A Successful Coffee Shop
Like many Americans, you probably enjoy at least one cup of coffee in the morning. Whether you brew a pot and take it with you in a commuter cup or fill up many plain white paper cups throughout the day, you’re not alone in enjoying a cup of Joe.
It’s no secret that Americans love coffee, like a lot. In fact, 46% of Americans say coffee helps them stay productive on the job and more than half of Americans aged 18 and older drink coffee every single day.
If you’re immediately taken in by the smell of coffee beans, the taste of java and different brands and blends of coffee, one of best ways you can show your passion is by opening a coffee shop.
Open up a coffee shop? Are you serious? Chances are stop in for a cup of coffee every day at a local coffee shop anyway and maybe you’ve thought to yourself about how fun and exciting it would be to work at a coffee shop. Opening a coffee shop is your chance to do that. Coffee shops do business of more than $40 billion annually—independent coffee shops do about $12 billion a year–and even if you don’t have a business background, a solid business plan can make your coffee shop a success.
If you’re a bit taken aback by the thought of being a coffee shop owner, don’t be. Operating a coffee shop can give you plenty of exciting benefits. Being a business owner can give you plenty of creative freedom and control over the shop’s decor, the menu, the kinds of coffee, everything, even the plain white paper cups if you wish. With a strong business plan, you’ll likely make plenty of money.
Perhaps most importantly, you’ll have a chance to be a go-to spot in the community. Think about how many people you see every day, stopping into coffee shops, grabbing plain white paper cups full of coffee and sitting down to read the latest news. Now imagine all those people, gathering in your coffee shop, clutching those plain white paper cups, talking with friends and neighbors and giving you their business. Not only are they giving you their business, but there’s a strong chance many of them are just as passionate about coffee as you are.
It’s true that operating a coffee shop can be a successful business venture, it takes more than just passion to be successful. You need a good business plan and to be aware of some of your main business concerns, including:
- Scheduling
- Reliability of employees
- Competition
- Supply costs
- Business growth
By addressing and mastering those concerns, you can turn your coffee shop into the place to be. Here’s how you can master those concerns listed above:
- Invest in the experience: If you’re in a big city with plenty of competition, you want your coffee shop to stand out. You can do this by giving customers something they absolutely can’t get anywhere else. What that is is up to you, whether it’s your coffee varieties or just the overall experience. By maximizing that special something, people will be driven to your business.
- Use technology: Most businesses today use technology to their benefits. That means using a point of sale (POS) system will help you keep track of your store inventory and the orders taken among many other things.
- Use automatic reordering: Getting a handle on inventory, means you’ll know how when to reorder supplies much faster. That means you need to take stock of everything your company uses from the coffee beans to the coffee cups to the straws to the sugar to the food and figure out how much you use.
- Be flexible: When it comes to your employees, make things easy for them. This means streamlining scheduling and allowing them to swap shifts if they need to.
- Market: Any business not using social media these days is in trouble. You can use it to alert people to your business and post deals and specials you offer.
The sky can be the limit when running a coffee shop. Passion, creative and strong business acumen can make your coffee shop stand out and make it the place to be in town.
