What I Know About Running Coffee Shops PDF
Preview What I Know About Running Coffee Shops
Contents Introduction My Cafés First Things First: Get A Job The Building Choosing A Location What Are You Looking For? Great Business Idea vs. Great Business Model Go Big Or Go Small Footfall The Little Things The Premises What Should You Ask The Experts About? Building And Contracting The Final Decision The Café The Basics Building Trade The Bleeding Bunny Rule: Workflow, Efficiency & Perception Be Two-Faced Selling Retail Coffee Bags Loyalty Cards The Delivery Drivers 50¢ Security Tables & Chairs Toilets The Plated Napkin & Other Continuous Struggles Coffee Coffee, Briefly Milk Slows You Down The Importance Of Water A Drink By Any Other Name Knowledge : Coffee : Equipment Extra Hot Make The Worst Cup Better Staff How to Hire People Continuity Is The Cheapest Staffing Strategy Culture Culture Trumps Quality Control The Correlation Of Nice Respect Don’t Speak Ill Of Your Competitors Assertive vs. Aggressive Don’t Boast About The Long Hours An Email Never Solved An Argument Family & Friends Social Media We Are All Marketing Scum Two Guys & A Bottle Of Milk Have Fun Numbers Coffee As A High Margin Product Understanding Margins The Staff Cost Equilibrium Keeping Track Acknowledgements For Oisín, the boulder roller. What I Know About Running Coffee Shops First published 2017 32 Grand Canal Street Lower, Dublin 2, Ireland Copyright © 2017 Colin Harmon All rights reserved. No part of this production may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the written consent of the Publisher. Designed in Ireland by WorkGroup ISBN 978-0-9957699-0-8 Typeset throughout in Spinoza by Max Phillips and Nimbus Sans Extended Bold by URW++. whatiknowaboutrunningcoffeeshops.com Introduction I’VE WRITTEN THIS BOOK NOT ONLY FOR PEOPLE who want to run their own coffee shop but also for those that already do. It’s a lonely place running a business and I know from experience that the hardest time to ask for advice is often the time you need it most. I’m hopeful that regardless of what stage you’re at in your journey, you will find something of value in all the triumphs, disasters and lessons in the chapters that follow. I’m also hopeful that this book finds its way into the hands of those who have absolutely no intention of running a coffee shop but are merely interested in the processes that it entails. I’ve long been fascinated with books on people’s professions whether they are climbers, bankers, chefs or footballers. The details of how they do their daily work are something I draw inspiration and motivation from on a regular basis, regardless of how different my own job may be. Throughout the writing of this book I’ve had a broader audience in mind and if this book can hold the attention of people inside and outside the coffee community then, to me, it will have been a success, regardless of the numbers it sells. I tend to meet three or four people a week who are looking to open a coffee shop and it’s quite a strange conversation to have. Many of these people I’ve met have never run a business before and have no experience in cafés but have become determined to leave their existing careers behind and open their own coffee business. It’s very difficult to be successful in the hospitality industry – and doing it without any experience is next to impossible – but there’s something about coffee that draws people in. I have seen the reality of running a coffee shop turn from a dream to a nightmare on many occasions, and it can leave a person broke, exhausted and without any options. It’s a fickle industry where it’s a constant struggle to stay relevant and there are always more people lined up to have a crack at it if it doesn’t work out for you. The original title for this book was “How to Run a Coffee Shop”, but it never sat right with me so I changed it to the title you see on the front cover. I wanted instead to write about my own subjective opinions and experiences and the criteria that I use at work, coupled with what I feel are the more objective standards that most of us can agree on. It’s a job that teaches me something new every day, so I feel more at home telling you not how to do your job, but instead what I know about doing mine. At times it has felt like something of a confessional and when I’ve gone back through old accounts, emails and blog posts to recall my train of thought, it has often been a very sad experience for me. Although my business, 3fe Coffee, has now grown into a world-renowned coffee brand, looking back at the early days and how hard they were for me, my family and my friends has been a difficult and painful exercise that involved admitting a lot of home truths. Despite all of this, however, it is a wonderful way to make a living. The social aspect of the job is incredible and getting to meet such a wide variety of people on a daily basis is something I’m really grateful for. We often say that we’re only one customer away from fixing any kind of problem because there’s always at least one professional in any discipline that drinks coffee at our shop. I feel very fortunate to have made it this far and try never to take it for granted. In retrospect, I can see how I often sidestepped disaster unknowingly, so if even a handful of people can benefit from my advice I am more than happy to have shared it. The last thing I’d like to do with this book is warn people off running a coffee shop, but I would definitely encourage people to get a realistic insight into what doing that entails. Personally, I wouldn’t swap my job for any other, however I’m also fully aware that my own experience of running a café could easily have gone down a very different route. “Failing” has become very trendy these days amongst business gurus as the best way to learn about running a business. Failing in business has come to be seen as a rite of passage and something to be worn as a badge of honour, and to a large extent I can understand the benefits of learning from mistakes. I can tell you right now, however, that the only thing that’s better for a business owner to do than failing is succeeding. If you can succeed first time round and skip the life lesson that failing provides then do that 100% of the time. The coffee business is an incredibly engaging one and I’m thankful that I managed to end up in it. It has a vibrant, progressive and inclusive nature that a lot of industries could learn from and at its core lies one simple goal: hospitality. Colin Harmon 08/12/16 My Cafés Café Number 1: The Twisted Pepper’s Lobby This is the first café that we opened on December 5th 2009 in the lobby of a nightclub called the Twisted Pepper on Middle Abbey Street in Dublin. The space was no more than 20m2 and, at best, had seating for about 12 people, though my ability to serve any more than three customers at a time was questionable. The counters were all on wheels and this allowed us to pack the whole thing away at night. The espresso machine itself rolled into a cupboard and all the tables and chairs were moved elsewhere to make way for 600 young clubbers four nights a week. We’d often come in in the morning to find broken glass, spilt drinks, cigarette butts and the odd pair of underwear scattered around the place. This café was operated usually just by me, but I had a couple of part-time staff to help out. At the height of its powers, this café served about 150 cups a day but was never a viable business or even capable of sustaining more than one employee at a time. People would often remark that the shop was never going to work and, although I agreed with them I knew I was doing the right thing. Making a profit here wasn’t my primary goal (not that I had any choice in that matter), instead I was testing the market in Dublin which, until that point, had had very limited exposure to specialty coffee. I was also determined to build a reputation for high standards of cup quality, great service and build a strong, if tiny, brand on that reputation.
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