How to Start a Coffee Shop Business

For young couples, it is a good enough place for a date. For small entrepreneurs, a perfect place to seal deals. For friends, the best place to hangout. For students, a cool place to do school works and study. We’re talking about the coffee shop.

For a cup of coffee, you can rest your feet, enjoy the ambiance, smell the stimulating aroma of coffee and the sweet smell of pastries. That is, if you can find an empty seat!

With the current craze in coffee shops, many people want to put up this kind of business. There does appear to be a strong potential as there are many good locations that still do not have a coffee shop.

For those interested, here is a short list of the essential steps in starting a coffee shop:

1. Select a location that is ideal for the type of coffee shop you want to establish. Most of us are familiar with the mall type of location but if you are a start up entrepreneur, you might be faced with difficulties in being allowed as a tenant. It would probably be best to put up your coffee shop within a busy strip mall with many upper and middle class patrons. A strip mall is much smaller version of a mall, usually without a supermarket and department store.

2. After selecting the location, you must make an estimate if the potential sales would be sufficient to pay for the rentals and still allow you to make a good profit. You must compute your break even point to know this. Seek the assistance of an expert on making financial projections if you are not familiar on this matter.

3. Image is critical to establish your brand, each aspect of your shop’s physical appearance must be enticing and consistent to your target market from your logo and color scheme to the furnishings, etc. Have a professional interior designer construct your interior to the taste of your target market.

4. Scout for the best supplier of coffee beans and other consumables. Go for the highest quality possible. Most people may not notice but those that do are the opinion leaders.

5. Unlike the consumables it is not advisable to pay for the highest quality equipment if you are a start up because you may not recover the cost. Well known branded equipment costs several times their China built counterpart. Besides this, your costumers would not appreciate your pricey equipment since they will not be consuming these anyways. So as long as its output is the same, go for the lower priced equipment even if they are not as durable.

6. Hire experienced and well trained baristas. Differentiate your coffee shop by offering a high level of service.

7. Constantly look out for improvements to your operations. Competitors are not standing still and neither should you.

If you want to know more about coffee shops then we advise you to attend a seminar on the business. BusinessCoach, Inc. conducts seminars on how to start and operate your own coffee shop.

Click here to view details of the training program: Starting a Coffee Shop Business with Barista Training >>>

*Originally published by the Manila Bulletin. Written by Ruben Anlacan, Jr. (President, BusinessCoach, Inc.) All rights reserved. May not be reproduced or copied without express written permission of the copyright holders.