Opening a coffee shop finally!

[Think Coffee and Teas]

Well next week I have my soft opening of my coffee shop. Finally, I have one of my own to take on the giants.

It is located in a local business hub surrounded by businesses and then downtown. My biggest worry was how to get people in off the streets but I know I just have to build up the clientele with high quality coffee, smart marketing and a couple things that I can offer to my customers that give me a competitive advantage over the other coffee shops in the area (which there are many).

My shop will be extremly evironmentally friendly with all organic fair trade coffees, recyclable cups, organic sugar, cream etc etc. From my experience, I have not seen many coffee shops that are this strongly environmentally aware and am excited to see what the reaction is with the customers. If anyone knows of coffee shops that operate like this please let me know what you've seen.

The shop is actually a very small bar area and will be more of a "take out" coffee shop but in the next couple months I will probably be getting tables and chairs outside on the sidewalks of downtown. Right now I will probably only have enough seating for about 10 people inside, not many.

I will also be serving fresh bakery items every morning and also hot lunches on fridays to start off with and probably expand to selling lunch everyday. Breakfast too of course.

Finally, I guess I should say the name of the shop, it's called Maya Cafe and will have a Mayan influenced design "theme" with decor and music to match. I'm sure my clientele will enjoy the change of pace with the other coffee places around.

Please feel free to reply and talk about your own coffee shop or ideas for one.

[Coffee Guy]

First of all, why are you only trying to target one market? Fair Trade, and all of that is good, but you are leaving out an entire market that couldn't care less about fair trade, especially if they have to pay extra for a drink whereas, they could get a drink somewhere else for less. The same applies for organic coffee. I'm not shooting down your idea, just telling you how things are in the Seattle. There are a lot of operators here that sold organic and fair trade coffees only to find that they were expensive for them to buy and even more expensive to sell to their customers. And since their sales fell quite a bit, some dropped have dropped serving either. Might I suggest that you add these items to your menu after you've had the opportunity to open first. Don't put all of your eggs in one basket.

[Think Coffee and Teas]

First of all, why are you only trying to target one market? Fair Trade, and all of that is good, but you are leaving out an entire market that couldn't care less about fair trade, especially if they have to pay extra for a drink whereas, they could get a drink somewhere else for less. The same applies for organic coffee. I'm not shooting down your idea, just telling you how things are in the Seattle. There are a lot of operators here that sold organic and fair trade coffees only to find that they were expensive for them to buy and even more expensive to sell to their customers. And since their sales fell quite a bit, some dropped have dropped serving either. Might I suggest that you add these items to your menu after you've had the opportunity to open first. Don't put all of your eggs in one basket.

I agree with what you say. Although my coffee prices will actually be lower or at least the same at most with all of my competitors who do or do not sell organic fair trade coffee like I will. The only coffee that I will be charging more for will be my Kona and Maui, which I am almost positive is not served anywhere else in town.

I position my coffee shop and coffee beans as higher quality than what you would find out there but lower in price, if only just a bit. It should be a foolproof plan, but we'll see how it goes.

I work very closely with a company that imports and roasts beans so I can get a pretty good rate on fresh roasted coffee from a variety of countries.

[Think Coffee and Teas]

^^^ Thanks for the good words

I am really excited and happy about it. I think that if I am able to offer a better product, even if it mean sacraficing some profit, I'm going to go ahead and do it, it will pay off in the end once my clientele sees what they are getting.

I've read a lot of your posts and seen that you make kiosks. I would be interested but I do not have a need for one at the moment. In the next several months I will be working towards getting a kiosk in the mall in my town also but they already have kiosks available for the vendors.

I wanted to have a theme for my coffee shop because most coffee shops that I know of do not, and why not if it adds value to my customers experience? And it will also differentiate my store from others.

I will be offering customers a small discount if they bring in their own mug. Hopefully that is something allowable, I actually didn't realize that it would be a problem until you brought it up, thanks.

I think that about sums it up, here is a picture of the coffee kiosk inside the business hub before we got a hold of it (we are going to put in some high tops over in that empty area on the right side of the picture):

[topher]

LOOKS GREAT!! Good luck with it...where is your espresso machine?

[EspressoOutfitters]

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[Coffee Guy]

Your place looks pretty cool I especially like the lighting, nice touch. I have to agree with E.O., needs something else. I'm kinda thinking something backlit with neon. Do you have a logo?

[topher]

hate to add this but if I was you I would start to source replacement bulbs...they can be expensive to replace for that particular fixture...buddy had them in his shop.

[Coffee Guy]

Yeah you're right topher, but neon still looks cool

[topher]

not the neon...If those are the same as my buddies they are halogen