The Coffee Boys’ step-by-step guide to setting up and managing your own coffee bar

224 Pages·2010·1.37 MB·English

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The right of John Richardson and Hugh Gilmartin to be identified as authors of this
work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.

© 2010 John Richardson and Hugh Gilmartin

First published in electronic form 2010

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978 1 84803 381 8

Produced for How To Books by Deer Park Productions, Tavistock
Typeset by TW Typesetting, Plymouth, Devon

NOTE: The material contained in this book is set out in good faith for general
guidance and no liability can be accepted for loss or expense incurred as a result of
relying in particular circumstances on statements made in this book. Laws and
regulations may be complex and liable to change, and readers should check the
current position with the relevant authorities before making personal arrangements.
Contents
About the Authors ix
Introduction xi
Part One: The Good and the Bad of the Coffee Shop
Industry 1
Good cop 3
Bad cop 6
Weighing it all up and tipping the scales one way or the other 9
What do you want to do for the rest of your life? 9
Part Two: The Entrepreneur Skills Matrix 15
Key lessons before you even contemplate pouring your first cup
of coffee 17
Key entrepreneur skill number one: Relentless, pig-headed
determination 17
Key entrepreneur skill number two: Taking complete and utter
responsibility for your business 21
Key entrepreneur skill number three: Provide tons of value 24
Key entrepreneur skill number four: Realism – the ability to really
see things as they are 26
Key entrepreneur skill number five: Financial discipline 27
Key entrepreneurial skill number six: The ability to make tough
decisions and ‘not care what others think’ 31
Key entrepreneurial skill number seven: Crystal clarity 33
Part Three: The Great Formula! 37
How we developed the Great Formula 39
The basic formula 40
Concept dilution 43
Understanding how concept dilution manifests itself 46
v
vi · Setting Up and Managing Your Own Coffee Bar
Part Four: The Great Formula Explained 49
1 Passion 51
The shopping centre ‘food hall’ test 52
2 Taste 59
Taste part one – Food 64
How do you go about creating great food? 67
Sandwich rules – for mid-range retail sandwiches 68
Key mantras 70
Star products 71
What should you sell? 73
The coffee shop model 73
Keep innovating 77
Taste part two – Coffee 78
Quality 79
Customer loyalty 79
Marketing 80
Staff satisfaction and motivation 80
Customer service 80
Profits 80
Methods of brewing 83
Focus of filter coffee 84
Espresso-based coffee 87
The truth about coffee labels 87
Equipment reality 89
Emotionally engaging your consumer 92
3 Positioning 96
Location, location, location is . . . nonsense, nonsense, nonsense 96
Nomenclature 99
Positioning 102
4 People 103
Bob and Brenda; understanding how customers think 104
Dealing with employees 115
Recruiting great staff 118
Application forms 119
The interview 120
Induction and the concept of rules 123
Contents · vii
Introducing your rules 124
Post-induction 129
Some final rules about training and dealing with your staff 130
5 Marketing 135
Creating desire 138
How to drive loads of customers into your shop 138
6 Systems 143
Looking at three scenarios 143
Real life scenario: Bob sets up a coffee bar 150
Supplier contact details 154
Delivery problems 155
Ingredient problems 156
Why your business needs systems 160
So what exactly needs to be systemised? 161
7 Money 163
So how does the whole money and financial thing work out? 165
Part Four: Step-by-step Action Plan 173
A step-by-step walk through the weeks and months in the lead
up to opening a coffee shop 175
Step One – deciding on the model 175
Step Two – deciding where you’ll be based 177
Step Three – deciding whether to rent or lease 177
Step Four – putting together your projected profit and loss 178
Step Five – writing a business plan 181
Step Six – pulling together all your suppliers 185
Step Seven – open the doors! 186
Coffeeboys useful contacts 187
Index 195
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About the authors
JOHN RICHARDSON
John Richardson started his career with coffee shops at the age of 14. His first job
was within a legendary ice cream and coffee shop in the coastal town of
Portstewart. Along with his brother, he worked (less than diligently it has to be
said) for the princely sum of 60p per hour. At this level he was possibly overpaid.
But he didn’t agree. As he and his brother sat slumped over the counter on the
wet and windy days when it was quiet they would idly calculate how much
money the business was making. Like nearly all employees past, present and
future, they arrived at a figure of about £500 of net profit for every £1,000 that
was put in the till. Slightly indignant at these huge profits that were being made
they would pop another stolen ice cream Flake into their mouths and dream at
some stage in the future of one day having a business like that themselves . . .
Never forgetting this dream, John went to university and undertook a business
and marketing degree and by the age of 26 he owned the largest sandwich
business in Ireland. A sad case of over expansion and ignoring many of the
fundamentals of business meant that by the age of 28 this business was broken
up and sold off.
Somewhat chastened he then moved into a variety of other businesses including
chip shops, garden centres, coffee shops and restaurants. The lessons learned
from the sandwich business stood him in good stead and many of these
businesses became highly successful and garnered many awards. An interesting
and somewhat greed-driven venture into the internet in 2001 wasn’t so clever
though and helped illustrate to him how important it is to keep focusing on the
fundamentals of what you really know about.
In the summer of 2005, John sold his stake in all his trading businesses and
established a consultancy business aimed primarily at the coffee shop industry.
His clients range from single-site espresso bars to multi-site chains with a few
restaurants thrown into the mix for variety. With Hugh Gilmartin (and a few
other associated Coffee Boys), he helps produce anything from full turn key
i x