Help me indulge / flesh out / give up on this fantasy please

[TheWayTheLightFalls]

There's a small weekend market in a park near me. Coffee, artisanal bread and croissants, overpriced olives, butcher, veg, handmade pasta, maybe a soap stall/woven baskets/kids clothes once in a while... that sort of thing. Quite a lot of footfall, wealthy residential area, kids' playground 100m away.

I'd like to run a tea stall. Literally a stall selling various hot teas. Partly because the coffee stall is just for coffee/hot choc and also incredibly, achingly slow, so you can have a queue ten deep; and partly just because I've gotten it into my head now so, you know, there it is.

• I know there are insurance requirements to do this, that is fine.

• I have money to throw at it (within reason) so if I end up with 5,000 compostable cups and enough tea bags for the rest of my life that's fiiine.

• I know the market organisers (ish - through running a stall there ages ago to promote a local charity) and that they are open to enquiries, though I don't know about this kind of stall specifically.

• DH is not thrilled about the idea because we both have actual jobs but has learnt to pick his battles, and I wouldn't look to do it every weekend.

• Cost of the pitch is £70ish/week, with electric hook up.

Well? What am I missing?

Sounds lovely - where is it? I want to come!

how will you make the stall look attractive? At the moment I’ve got visions of a tea urn like you get at school fetes!

Yup, do it. You might find it waaaay harder than you think to get a pitch though. Or they might insist you committ to it more than you're hoping to!

What I'm saying is enquire about a pitch and take it from there.... no point wasting time thinking about it until you know if it's actually a possibility.

would it be tea bags or tea leaves and how much would you sell each cup for?

Go for it OP, even if it doesn't pan out in the long run, you'll be glad you did it.
I love the idea. Teas are good, especially if you sold the actual tea too, and maybe some little biscuits like biscottis. Quite often at markets like this, I want to have a slightly cheaper and smaller snack than an expensive coffee and a big slab of flapjack or brownie. I would also say a big kilner jar of iced tea would be good too and some iced water. I think it would be great. You could do a feature tea each week , and some autumnal stuff. Can you tell I'm excited? I ran a cake stall at a market for about 4 weekends once for a friend and I absolutely loved it.

Will you be able to heat water to the right temperature? 100C for ordinary English black tea, cooler for green teas and herbal teas? Generally I find that green tea is horrible in places which make good black tea and vice-versa. The only place that gets them both right is Whittards - because of heating the water to the right temperatures.

If you want to keep in with the artisanal vibe, this might be a good USP.

Is this a business or a social enterprise to fulfill your fantasy. Best to decide that up front and set your set a target and an absolute maximum budget in advance, so you can track against it. No cheating, either, eg by buying supplies from your usual housekeeping account.

I'd start with a lot or research and desk work (sorry)

Firstly, by setting up a new account, easy enough to do on line. May have to be converted to a business account in due course but I'd give myself a few gos before deciding whether it was going to continue. Say three months ?

Then I'd plot out who the customer is, maybe identify key groups of people who want to attract

I'd also work out the 'customer journey', which may need to be different for different types of customers.

Next step is to plan out what you will offer those customers. Signage to make them aware that you exist, show where / how to order, where to collect etc Even a few customers will get in each other's way so it's good to plot out the flow through your stall.

The kind of customer will be helpful when you work out what payment systems will be appropriate and expected : cash is easy but costly to process and needs change/float to run smoothly. Tech savvy customers may have a strong preference for swiping card/phone which requires relatively simple infrastructure these days. Costs / support another area to research.

Which takes us back to your record keeping. What records do you plan to keep. Cash means a manual record , swiping means you know the vale of each transaction automatically.

Then consider what if anything you can upsell. Biscuits, other snacks etc all to get factored into the journey depending on the type of customers you want to target.

And who will be 'serving'. Do you plan to do it all your self. Company might be fun but adds complexity. If you can find someone who would be happy to lend a hand from the start it would I think be good. To set up/ break down. And mind the stall while you have a comfort break.

Lots of decisions required. Don't stress about them, but I would encourage you to keep a journal about these things and not hesitate to adjust as reality unfolds.

Enjoy.

You would definitely need some biscuits to go with the tea. Sounds great. Maybe ask one of the other stall holders if they want to supply you with the biscuits/flapjacks etc.

Will you be able to heat water to the right temperature? 100C for ordinary English black tea, cooler for green teas and herbal teas?

this is exactly why I asked on Mumsnet! I suppose I could? The best example I remember is a stall that had little individual pots with timers per order, to brew correctly. I’m not good at visual arrangement so that would need thought/inspiration.

It doesn’t need to be a business in any conventional sense. I run a charity so I wondered about directing any proceeds that way (we have a treasurer who’ll tell me if that’s more trouble than it’s worth).

I have this kettle www.robertdyas.co.uk/haden-197207-richmond-1-7l-variable-temperature-kettle-stainless-steel . I really like it.

As for the brewing timers, you turn over the timer and place it and the cup of brewing tea in front of the customer at the same time. They can then choose how long to brew for and you can move on to the next customer without having to keep brainspace for the timers.

Consider whether you're going to sell cold / iced tea - we may have another hot spell in late September. Also you need a logo to make your drinks' cups stand out from the coffee / hot chocolate stand.

Carefully consider your pricing too. As belts get tightened, people are likely to give up specialised olives but stretch to a cup of tea whilst they watch the kids play. Also check how much a card reader is, per month. Not enough people carry cash now to run it on a cash only basis.

Don't be tempted to use your tea bags twice to double your profits cos' people will notice and stop buying your tea.
Remember that honest-tea is the best policy!

Takeaway tea is usually awful; I don’t know if it’s the paper cups, poor quality tea bags or the use of non-boiling water. Or all those things. But if you can do it all properly, with quality leaf tea in a good selection of varieties, then I’d definitely buy from you. Especially if you have nice homemade biscuits to go with it.

I don’t drink coffee and it always irritates me that Dh can always buy a nice coffee at farmers markets and such, but the tea is always a crappy substandard afterthought.

Seconding PP above: takeaway tea is normally shocking (for a proper tea drinker) so you could make it a USP to sell properly tea:

In a china mug - no way round this. Tea from paper cups isn't nice.

Brewed properly before the milk goes in. No pallid milky liquid with a sluggy teabag bleeding brown juice into the slop.

If you can get these right, your customers will love you forever!

Got to be real cups!
nothing else to add, but I can still clearly remember the best cup of tea I’d ever had! It was at a festival, in the 90s, out of a van. In a big, proper China mug 😍 I think they were all various mugs, so perhaps collected/charity shop things, but definitely not logo’d. Do it properly and it will work.

I wouldn't look to do it every weekend.

Oh, I think you’d have to … I rarely go to food markets any more (because I used to go to the one under the castle in Edinburgh and nothing else compares 🙄) but if I started going to one regularly again I’d be vaguely aggrieved if a stall I liked wasn’t there every week. Particularly something like tea!

And will you have a few seats, too? I’m a million years old and find nothing hip or glamorous about having to trudge around perilously clutching a hot drink and a piece of cake. And I’d already be carrying bags and baskets of bread and veg etc. So I’d want to sit down.

Would be delighted to be able to buy the various varieties of tea (leaf?) too.

It sounds so much fun!

How do you expect the coffee stall to react?

The coffee stall ought to be pleased!

I have an online coffee bean subscription. But after drinking the OP’s tea and giving back my china mug I’d be keen to buy a bag of tea. Which would prompt me to ‘pick up’ some coffee beans too - as I’m there.

You know costs so list them.
(Don't forget some wage for your time, transport to and from, stock storage, extra car insurance for business use etc)
Work out how much you're likely to sell (Watching the footfall and ease with which people spend, and consider price points)
and then work out how much you'd need per sale to cover your costs.

What do they provide you with at the stall for £70? Does it include water? electricity? security? equipment storage? rubbish?
If you're using an urn you'll need to allow time between each refill to heat to the right temp. If you have mains water you'll need a water filter, instant hot tap. Either option will mean that you'll have 1 container of hot boiling water and you'll need another container of filtered cold water to mix the two temperature waters together brew green teas and others that require the lower temps.
Will you have dairy milk that needs refrigerating?
Where are you scouring your tea from? - is it branded teabags from Costco or white label loose leaf?

Factor in those weekends when it pours down with rain too ...

Personally I would like a soup stall, if I was watching the kids at the park I would probably bring a flask of tea with me, but a mug of hot soup would be a treat, yet an affordable one this winter. Different flavours each week would entice me back to your stall too and then there is the add-ons of croutons, rolls etc x

Oh, yes, a small van trundles round the local sport pitches and football fields , doing a roaring trade in home made soup. One veg, one non veg flavour each week.

Parents are a captive audience, too, held in thrall for the duration of the match.

If you did china mugs surely you'd need a seating area too? People won't want to wander around with a real mug, I can see them just being put down and left anywhere.

Maybe look into china travel mugs, so you get the china experience and can offer reduced prices for people bringing their own mugs / buying one of yours.