Individually brewed coffee vs.pot brewed

[CynfulPleasures]

Hi there! I am wondering how cost effective individually brewed coffee will be. We are going to be a takeout-only coffee shop. We will not have seating and have great walk by traffic thankfully so the concept should work fine.

My partner really likes the concept of individually brewed coffee because a woman in town does it. There is a way to make/buy cabinetry where there are circular areas built in, you stick in a filter and several cups can be freshly brewed at once. But, I am thinking this will be more expensive than brewing it in a machine and having people self serve with air pots. We need about twelve customers an hour for coffee/tea/espresso drinks and need to do another $6000 in retail a month.

Any ideas or experience with this? Cynthia

 

[topher]

If you are going to do air-pots...do not make the customer get their own coffee...have your Barista get it for them...That way the barista can try and up sell them to a specialty drink...plus most customers do not know what they want to drink and need help figuring it out. Also when one goes to a coffee shop they are paying for the service not just teh coffee. Individual brewed coffee is a good concept...but I think you need to use drip and do individual for those who want it that way....remember what Jello Biafra said....give me convenience or give me death

 

[barefoot]

Cynthia:

Do BOTH! The in a hurry customers will be happy to have the gool old drip for speed and familiarity. And the coffee lovers will lvoe you for giving them freedom of choice, the freshest cup posible and a unique expereince. We are also building a melitta bar in our cafe next to our filter drip airpots.

Just make sure you grind each order fresh or you ar defeating the whole purpose. Just have a small grinder nearby or use your regular grinder. Make up a few whole bean servings in cups or whatever and seal them up that way they are already pre measured and you just pour them into the grinder and grind right into the filter and BOOM! done.

it is coffee made just for you, right now with service and care. We always have 6 differnet filter coffees on bar all the time and people LOVE to choose their own coffees by reading our descriptive labels. We always talk to them about the coffees but don't upsell them to espresso because we already sell about 75% espresso drinks. We just talk to them about getting whole bean coffee for home use. 80% of all coffee is drunk at home!

 

[kftjong]

Andy:
What a great idea! Since I am new to this coffee business I am going to have a lot of questions (if you don't mind). :roll:
1. What coffee machine do I have to use to brew this individual cup? I guess this machine should be able to handle a different size of cup.
2. Do I leave the grinder outside for the customer to grind the bean or do I grind the bean for them? What grinder do I have to use?
3. How much do I have to charge the customer for individual brewed coffee? I wild guess is it should be the price between drip coffee and cappuccino.

My background: I have boba/bubble/pearl tea(whatever you want to call it) store but I need to find a way to bring in more revenue to survive.
Around here there are several heavy weight competitors such as starbucks and royale expresso. So, I must serve a very good cup of coffee. Since I am just a new comer I do not expect to have a heavy patrons coming in for the coffee so I do not need to invest into the heavy duty and expensive machines. Basically, I want to bring in this new line of business asap at the least expensive way.
I already had the research and bought rancilio expresso machine with the rocky grinder for expresso.

Thank you for your help and if anyone has any comments or ideas pls let me know.

Tjong

 

[Guest]

The best cup of coffee is when you use a press and yes charge more. I agree that if you use air pots do not let customers get it themselves and never let customers grind their own coffee!! To highten your volume may I suggest having people put their buisness cards in a bowl and have a weekly drawing. Free stuff always gets people excited and you will also get to know your patrons better. You might also see a trend of where your customers are coming from so you know where to target your advertising. Also, staff is the key. You have to have friendly employees who are educated about coffee and enjoy their job. Anyways, that is what I have learned. Hope it helps!

 

[barefoot]

There are maybe a few ways to do "one-cup" brewing. The one we like best is to use a melitta cone and grind per order for the customer, then pour the hot water over it and brew it right into the cup. Pretty fast, easy and amazing taste and made just fro them. We charge .50 more per drink for it because of the extra labor.

We are just about to build a melitta bar so we can do more of this. We sell a few now but we feel it is a huge benefit and the best flavor.

KFTJONG, are you in the Bay Area? I saw you mentioned Royal espresso. If you are you should drop by our cafe and we can talk more. Let me know if you want to meet sometime this week. I am always happy to help out in improving the coffee quality anywhere.

 

[LiftOff]

Barefoot...That is a great idea, sounds like alot of fun! Makes a great cup as well!

 

[crabbey]

The problem with the one brew system is that you have to grind the beans ahead of time in order to keep the line going. That makes them go stale and gives the coffee a really acidic flavour. A good way to get around that is using the French press, if you have a quick turnaround. Otherwise, the airpot is the way to go. Make sure to have a couple of roasts available (dark, sumatra, etc) I used to manage a coffee shop, but now I sell skin care products to women, (stuff like this Obagi Skin Rejuvination System) It's odd to sell stuff you put on your face instead of in your mouth.