What would you consider a success?

jtilden

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Oct 11, 2006
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Just wondering what those of you who own a coffee shop business consider a successful monthly bottom line? Case-in-point, I own an espresso drive thru and do pretty good averaging about 12k gross per month. Net on the other hand is a different story. My wife and I own a shop right outside of the Armies biggest stateside post, Fort Hood, TX. I am currently deployed to Iraq for the last and final time, I hit 20 years in August and upon my return in October of this year, I plan to retire and take on the shop full time. I have a few plans which are going to make sure we offer a service that no one I know of has yet to offer in my area, so I KNOW we will be successful. Not wanting to get too much into personal business, but on average, with all things considered what percentage of the gross should I expect to see as profit from what I have stated as an average gross? We own everything outright and only have the monthly lease to worry about as far as major expenses go. I already know payroll will go down once I return. I shop exclusively from Texas Coffee Traders out of Austin for my coffee beans, and I am very pleased with the product, we can get in the truck and go down and pick up supplies whenever we want which is a plus. Smoothie mixes come from Dr. Smoothie via UPS, same with Otis Spunkmier products. We make all of our shaved ice and some espresso flavors with simple syrup and…? (can’t say who because my competition might be reading). There are a few more vendors we deal with as well for cups etc. Thanks in advance for your replies.
 

equus007

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Apr 4, 2006
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Austin, Tx
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Hood

Which shop in Hood do you own? I am considering setting up a coffee for troops program and was just about to call RC(at TCT) to see if he knew of one out of Hood or Mabry. Sounds like you might have a bit more inside on whether or not they already have one set up.


In Austin I netted ~4K/month but I was in a very flooded market and had a closet sized shop that also offered hookah's(got lots of the kids coming out of Iraq stopping in) which drives off alot of the non-smoking clientelle, though the profit margin on Nagila is higher than that of drip coffee.
 

jtilden

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Oct 11, 2006
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I own "Java Jolt"...there are no programs like that set up that I know of. There is a coffee shop over here though doing REALLY well...It is called the "Green Bean" and offers a taste of home so to speak...unfortunatly the prep is not good at all but the uneducated masses do not seem to mind...the shop on my base takes in 3K A DAY :shock: ...but when that is all a soldier has to chose from then hey I can see why they are a success...thanks for the relpy, what percentage of your gross is that? 25...30...35%...?
 

equus007

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Apr 4, 2006
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Austin, Tx
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net v. gross

I'll have to look it up. It was a real forky business set up and the numbers were "loosely" kept wrt seperating the tobacco and coffee aspects. Also I had close to zero labor costs as I worked alone almost every day. Suppose its time for me to figure it out anyway. It was my first shop. A real adventure in failure but really prepared me for the second.
 
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