Any coffee shop owners?

[Dentalmum2]

This is purely theoretical, but I dream of opening a coffee shop. Not a hipster type place, but a more relaxed, social enterprise place where people can have tea/coffee and there would be a library type thing where they can read the books (in the coffee shop). It would have different teas/coffees inspired by places I visited over the years.
Tell me this is completely mad and I'd be bankrupt within a year.

As someone who used to (albeit a while ago) do the accounting for multiple coffee spaces my wisdom would be not to touch it with a ten foot pole.

You would definitely go broke very quickly!

Having said that - I've often thought about having a proper, old-fashioned, tea shop. With home-made cakes and scones, and perhaps sandwiches, but not coffee (I don't know why, because I like coffee) or 'meal' type food. Mismatched, old, wooden tables and chairs. Mismatched china, but all rosebud. Proper teapots. It would be an absolute disaster!

If you want a true social enterprise have a look at The Long Table. Fantastic place - way more than coffee and good now and some employees are paid some are volunteers.

People can buy meal tokens and you pay what you can afford from £0. It also sells proper coffee and cakes etc.

Also there are upcycled bikes, second hand furniture that can be bought by anyone but is cheaper with a referral, kids clothes etc etc

The place has such a buzz. Loved it.

https://thelongtableonline.com/

You don’t want customers to sit with a cup of coffee for ages reading books. You need a steady stream of customers.

I live in a small town, within 0.5 mile from my house there are 6 normal cafes, one in a bookshop and one at the garden centre plus a couple of places that do takeaway only, no chains all independent though I believe there is a Costa machine at the petrol station, the market is saturated. Bigger nearby towns have the chains, the majority of the customers seem to work in other cafes.

I agree with this.
If I were to go there ( quite likely) I'd probably spend a hour or so and buy one or at a push two coffees and chocolate brownie or similar so you wouldn't get much money out of me.
Also if I go in and someone is reading the book I was part way through I'd just leave.

Perhaps try something like this , I haven't been for a while but it's very popular.
https://www.manchestersfinest.com/articles/pay-per-minute-cafe-unlimited-food-drink-opened-manchester/

It's totally mad and you wouldbe bankrupt in a year. You won't make moneyfrom folk buying a cofee and staying for 4 hours.

@Mauro711 is right.

But if you were to include books I don’t see the appeal of a library facility where people could not take the books away. That would mean they would only read a small part of the book and hope it wasn’t being read by someone else when they returned. It would be an extra cost for you and they are likely to get tatty quicker than library books do.

I think a book exchange would make more sense. Start it off with a selection of books of your own or from a charity shop and make it known that customers have to donate a book to keep a book. There will be cheapskates who don’t do that but there will probably be people who will donate more than one book.

Depends on the rent and rates.

Terrible business idea, nice idea in theory but you’d probably go bankrupt pretty quickly

There's a cafe in our library. I hate the vibe and now don't use the library or the cafe.

You need to own the building (leases are very expensive and you are usually still liable for payment if you stop reading). Insurance is expensive, staff are expensive, supplies are expensive (unless you use really crap things), gas and electricity are more expensive than your expensive domestic supply, and customers will buy one drink and stay for hours. Unless you own the building, make everything yourself (at a loss), staff it yourself and don't expect any wages I'd run a mile! (I've owned and run restaurants and cafes - we sold the cafe just as the COL crisis began a couple of years back and the people who bought it sold it for a loss and the people who bought it from them went bust.)

Add up the costs, then think of the pretty ideas for the tea and decor.

Rent, business rates, bins, electric for all the equipment, heating, tradesmen for the equipment that breaks often, water, public insurance, food hygiene, cleaning products, stock, staff, pensions, national insurance.

Would tea and coffee bring in enough to fund all that and make profits?

I worked in that industry for years and no money on earth could get me back.

I love going into Waterstones, grabbing a selection of books and taking them into the cafe. I'm not intending to finish any of them, I either flick through non fiction travel books or read a few pages of a book that isn't my usual genre to get a feeling of it.

But Waterstones sell a hell of a lot of books for it to be viable for them to allow you to do that.

I agree with this. Our main library opened a cafe (which in theory I love the idea of) but it now has this weird homeless shelter type vibe. Can't really explain why, but it just feels off and I don't like this library now.

Perhaps not the point here but Waterstones isn’t a library. I’d hate to pay good money for a book that someone has been sitting reading whilst having coffee and cake and then put back on the shelf.

I used to own something that I hoped could be similar to what you describe. The best part of it was the day I sold it. Unfortunately you can’t pick your customers and I went into it ridiculously open hearted and basically had a couple of years of people trying to take the piss. I absolutely hated it and pretty much lost money from day one. Sorry.

I know it varies wildly depending on the city, but a place I used to work was up for rent recently for £1000 a month in rent and £25,000 a year in business rates.

One full time member of staff on the bare minimum you can legally pay them, plus rates and rent would be £60,000 before you even turn a light on.

Id say you need large chains eg waterstones model business