Opening a sandwich bar/Coffee bar

[OctoberMoon]

I'm aware this is not an AIBU, but i've posted on two other more relevant sections on the board and there's no traffic!

In the very, very early planning stage of hoping to eventually open a sandwich/coffee bar. After some information and advice if anyone here either runs one, works in one or knows a bit about it?

I have about 15k available to start me off (This is not a loan and won't need paying back to anyone) My idea is slightly different than a standard sandwich/coffee place but don't want to divulge too much info incase i'm outed.

In terms of staff, i'd be there running it as much as childcare would allow. I have 2 family members who are already in catering (and have the relevant food hygiene certificates required) who are hoping to get on board and work alongside me.

The questions I want to know the answers to will probably make me come across as extremely naive and lazy! I'm aware I could find the answers to these questions myself through market research etc, and I will, but i'm hoping those in the know may help me out a little? As I say, I am in the very early planning stages. The questions I want to know the answer to are -

Could my staff be self employed, responsible for their own tax and NI? Or do I need to be their employer?

I'm aware that location is the deciding factor as to whether this fails or succeeds. I'm thinking being close to other businesses/schools would be my best bet? Any tips of what I should look for in terms of location?

I want to start pricing equipment, is there a wholesale place that anyone could recommend? What's the best way to source produce in bulk?

Where can I find out more about what regulations I need to follow to open one? And more info on what qualifications or courses are needed in order to be able to safely work with food?

Any other info you can provide or any hints/tips would be greatly appreciated.

Oh and i'll have to try and make it AIBU, so am I being unreasonable and bloody stupid to think that this could work and make me a fairly decent living?

If you imagine a beach, one grain of sand is the original, beautiful idea. The rest is the cr*p you will have to go through.

If you have the right attitude, it might be quite useful in a masochistic type of way.
The right attitude being :-

1. I have 15k that I want to put down the grid and I don't care
2. 9 start ups out of 10 are failures. So I intend to start ten businesses

if you have this attitude, good luck and put a toastie on for me :)

It sounds like you've never worked in a sandwich shop? What gave you the idea of running one?

My very naive answer is that i'm simply passionate about food and coffee

Are you passionate enough about food to ever have actually worked in catering though?

Thank you everyone, really do appreciate the replies. even the ones that make me want to kill myself

I have worked in a sandwich shop and I bloody loved it. It was a popular chain though, well I say a popular chain, they have 3 in my City and 2 in the next Cities to me.

And even once you have started up, one of the big chains could come in next door the next week and put you out of business.

OP, you need to do a LOT more basic research, including going to work in the industry itself. If you are going self employed in any field, you really have to know your industry and your customers.

£15K is a tiny amount - you can sneeze and spend that when starting out. Can you source any other capital?

I'm worried that you think it's something you can fit in as childcare permits. Self employment can be flexible, yes, but you have to put the hours in, and then put even in more hours in than you ever expected. For every hour in the coffee shop itself, think about the time spent sourcing and buying stock, doing accounts, marketing, PR, managing the venue, planning new products/ranges/seasonal items, financial planning, HR stuff, cleaning, H & S, record keeping, staff training and development, etc etc. When it's your own business, you are solely responsible for all of this - the time I spend fulfilling orders is actually a tiny part of what I do (and I don't yet have any staff, and work from home).

When I started I spent at least six months doing my research and business planning. Govt have a wide range of free advice and support for anyone starting a business. I'm in Wales, and I went to some excellent courses run by Business LInk. They were free but were very useful indeed, and I've also used them subsequently for some more detailed queries on internet selling law. I'd strongly recommend doing something similar, and most of the high street banks offer helpful information/advice too when you are starting out.

You probably won't be able to take much money out of the business in the early stages, so have you thought about how you will be funded/supported during that time? You and your DP/DH need to have a very clear plan about this.

Having said all this, I LOVE being self employed and running my own business - it's immensely satisfying and enjoyable and our customers have been overwhelmingly brilliant (we make a specialist product in a very particular niche). But it's taken far more time than I'd expected and in the first year, things were very tight financially as we ploughed every spare penny back into the business. It's not for the fainthearted, and I honestly don't think you can do it part time (unless it's essentially a hobby).

Good luck!

I think I'd retrain in food/hospitality first and work in catering before I did this. I have seen a lot of people go bankrupt who were very passionate about food and coffee.

And don't forget marketing costs

I have worked in a sandwich shop and I bloody loved it

Well that's a start - but if you don't know the name of a single supplier then I assume you weren't involved in the running/management side of things, which is what you'd be doing if you were the owner.
What did you love about the job?

it is virtually impossible to make a profit from a café.

there's an independent coffee shop/ cafe near my home in London that I use in the mornings. It is always busy. Packed at breakfast and you can't get a table at lunchtime.

I met the owner at a friend's house over Christmas and she thinks she will go under this year. She charges as much as she can charge, she gets people in but she just can't break even.

I hate to piss in your Panini but I wouldn't do it

piss in your panini

No, I wasn't involved in the running and management side. I loved the interaction with the customers, I loved how creative we were allowed to be with the food, coming up with new ideas etc. I think I just love being around coffee and food

There is a difference between cafes in a village and town. In the village you're going to get the regulars, the mums who come in after doing the drop off, the women organising the church flower rota, the newly retired who come in after a bracing walk up the Jinny Trail and want a cup of tea for their efforts. But their biggest market will be the mum's at the school, meeting and walking over for a coffee before the one in the pram wakes up. You can have limited hours because no-one wants to use a village cafe at 7pm on a Wednesday. People will also travel to a cute or picturesque for a scone and a coffee, they won't neccessarily do that for a cafe in a shopping centre.

Now in a town, you're not only competing with the established (and probably perceived as cheaper or nicer) brands, but you'll have to cater to increased expectations re. opening hours and variety of stock. This will cost you more in overheads than the person running the village cafe. Also parents don't talk so much at the gates in secondary school- you're not going to get the same level of mum trade coming in. And if you're hoping to make this up with the kids from the school; they'll be wanting basic sarnies, butties and packets of crisps. Does that suit your vision?

To fit out a cafe 15k won't even touch the sides. That's before you consider sorting a lease, hiring staff and buying stock. I work in insurance and we'd be expecting a sum insured of £30,000 plus to outfit (and decorate) a small cafe of that description, and that would be skimpy.

I work in a capital city (albeit the smallest one) and there are only two independent cafes that I can think of like you describe, one of which is facing imminent closure due to rent increases. The other relies on regular professional customers from the courts etc., who all have tabs and pay them off at the end of the month. The ones that do ok are the very basic sandwiche shops that make it up and throw it at you before shouting, "next!"; they only need a small shop so spend less in rent, rates, etc.

TLDR; don't do it.

I also set up and run my own sandwich and coffee bar.
I would never again buy second hand equipment. It's cost me thousands in repairs and replacements. The only thing that has been a fantastic buy was my tall 2 group coffee machine. It's new and cost 5k. We have no business rates but the power costs are astronomical, we run 6 fridges, 2 freezers, 4 double panini grills, potato warmer, oven, soup kettle, till and lights. My dp is very handy and did all of the shop fit for me, it still cost 22k. That was almost totally second hand kit. To do with new stuff as I would recommend would cost nearer £45k
I love working for myself but holiday pay kills my profit so those weeks (24) that my 2 staff have off I have to work for free. Not fun

You don't even know business basics. I would put some of that money towards a business course before you just flush 15,000 down the drain.

I mean that in a kind way.

You don't know what you're doing. There's more to running a business than just buying a property and opening up a shop.

Something else to keep in mind, it takes a few years for any business to take off. You'll be living on pennies before you start making a steady income to live comfortably.

I live near to a reasonable sized town (population 100,000) with many tourists visiting.

In the last two years I have seen at least five cafe/coffee/sandwich bars open & close.

Put your cash elsewhere - honestly the horses would be more profitable.

Where I am there are many independent coffee shops and sandwich shops. Always busy. But then there are plenty of (a) rich mums lunching and drinking coffee (b) self employed people who do similar and use the wifi and (c) other rich people!

Maybe it's not just why they're rich. Dunno.

Anyway, down one particular high street there are NO chains. It's fiercely independent and the chains just wouldn't fit it

Another high street there's a mixture

Don't make the mistake of thinking there are too many coffee shops in one area though. Thinking about another town centre locally and there are half a dozen within spitting distance of each other

Area is key!

It's high risk, and sounds low reward

If you're passionate about food and coffee is there something else you can do from a zero start up cost? There are businesses that do it.

OP, I mean this in the best possible way, but do some homework.
Learn about the industry, get a business plan together.
You sound like you haven't got a clue and could end up losing far more than your initial outlay.
I do wish you well and if its a dream then you should go for it, but please open your eyes.

I agree with lots of pp that you shouldn't do it - bloody difficult business to do well in. Because of the fixed overheads you'd need to maximise the hours the shop is open, so not just lunchtime trade.

You should look at selling other things with better profit margins than coffees, sandwiches and snacks - so deli foods perhaps.

Thank you all.

Believe it or not, I ran a successful business a few years ago, for personal reasons it came to an end, but I do know a fair bit about business, accounts, book keeping etc. I know it clearly doesn't seem like it from this thread, but I do. I just don't know very much at all about this line of business but I would like to learn.

What I have in mind for my sandwich bar, there is nothing else like it in my City,or the Village where I live, but I believe with all my heart it could work.

How about being one of those delivery people who bring fizzy drinks, McDonalds and KFC to people who are ill or hungover?

Sorry OctoberMoon, I believe with all my heart that the world could be a nice pace.

How much belief do you have that your idea WILL work (not could)

I believe it will. I have to, don't I? This is an idea i've had for many years, i've just never done any research as life got in the way. Infact, I wanted to lease the place in my Village that is now a decent little sandwich bar and has been open for almost 3 years. My DP was against it as he said the timing wasn't right. He was wrong and is reminded of it everytime he take DD to school.

Were the personal reason it ended due to the fact you have young children? Because running a restaurant and having childcare responsibilities are a bad mix.

I've worked in catering for over 20 years and I would not even think about opening my own place, ever.

I know this sounds like a shitty thing to say but I have worked for a lot of people over the years and the ones who have gone bust are the ones who were motivated by a "passion for food." The ones who are still trading, doing well and opening new sites are the ones who look at the whole thing from a completely dispassionate point of view and see their businesses as businesses.

The problem about trying to establish a low-cost set up, such as making cakes etc. to order from home, is that so many people have done it as a way to make a bit of extra cash in the recession years. You'd really need to have something very different in mind for this to work because the market is saturated. And the more different you are the smaller your potential market becomes- ok in Manchester or London, more difficult to sustain in your average town.

What you could consider doing is something like the cakes but for corporate customers; doing sandwich and pastry platters and mass lunch orders for companies, serviced offices and the like. Could do reasonably ok if you were to supply an industrial estate or something where there's no-walk in cafes. You see very slow growth with things like this though and it requires constant flyering and promotion.

Another thing to add; when I meet owners of businesses like this they look exhausted. Honestly. Working for yourself seems like a dream, but when you're on your feet all day, close the shop, go home and then start to have to think about risk assessments and food hygiene certificates you'll be like, "what the fuck have I done".