To wonder how easy it is to make a living being a cafe owner?

[spanishwife]

I have a great job, but it's not my 'dream job'. I earn a really decent salary and happy day to day. My real dream and passion however would be to own a cafe/brunch spot. I live in a small, vibrant city in Europe and I think it would work well here, but I have no idea about the financial side of things. I have a decent amount I could bung in to set up, buy equipment and furniture, pay the necessary set up fees, do some training etc. I would probably hire an additional person to do clearing up and waiting tables/serving and I would do that also, as well as cooking/baking.

Does anyone have an idea of the kind of money you can make from this kind of business?

This is the first step on a long road of research, but don't have anyone to ask in RL!

Thanks in advance.

One thing that is especially difficult is building up a business to a good level before you run out of money/can no longer cope with earning little or nothing, which can be months or years.

Capital is needed to start up, which is great if you have money already, if not it has to be borrowed and repaid. Either way, if the business fails (and the stats say most do) then that is thousands of pounds or more just gone.

How long you can go without earning any money depends obviously on whether you have any savings, what other income you or anyone in the household has and how much is needed to pay your basic bills.

Again, if you work for a year or two without earning any money, that's the same as losing tens of thousands of pounds in lost income.

Not trying to persuade you not to do it OP, just painting a picture of the realities of doing something like this.

There's a local cafe near me. Started up 3 years ago they offer a small fresh menu, teas, coffees. They have been massively successful, they are always fully booked these days and employ 8 staff, part of it has been luck I think there's a bit of a cafe shortage around here the other is that they are really really good at what they do. The food is delicious and they are always welcoming.
They have however turned down the chance to expand twice as they'd rather do what they do well than over stretch themselves and lose quality. They take home c £35,000 a year at the moment so it can be done but not overnight and I do think location is the key factor.

I've been looking into this too as I'm a baker for someone else's tea room. Most of the waiting staff are international students who have long holidays during the summer and Christmas so she has to use her children to cover the gaps. They're English isn't good at first so they all need a lot of training and patience. They drop things all the time, breakage alone costs her £100 per month. The tips jar got stolen this week, about £200 worth! We usually all get paid half at the start of the month and the rest half way through due to money problems. She's been going for 5 years and left her job as a finance manager for a large international company to do it. She's the life and soul of the place, she loves cooking (but hates baking) if it wasn't for her determination and passion then I'm not sure the place would still be running. It's in the perfect spot in a big city but still it isn't easy. It has put me off wanting to have my own bakery but I think maybe catering for events and having a food stall on weekends etc doing food festivals during the summer might be how I start off. I really don't want to have to hire staff and rely on people other than myself. I'd prefer to see where it goes before I put all my eggs into one basket.

Thanks @mama1980

Take your laptop to a cafe that seems comparable to what you want to open. Spend the day there counting how many people they serve and what they are buying, plug the info plus the costs from the menu into your laptop and that will allow you to start calculating income. Just make sure you buy plenty from the cafe whilst you are there to justify occupying one of their tables for the whole day. Think about how much time each item on your menu would take to serve - an Americano can be made in less than a minute but milk based drinks take a lot longer to make. What is the ratio of black to milky drinks in your local area? If it takes 2.5 minutes to make a latte that means you can make 24 per hour if they sell at £2.50 each then your maximum revenue per hour would be £60 per employee and this needs to cover the cost of ingredients, equipment, salaries and overheads.

The other way to look at it is average spend per person (say £5 for a coffee and cake or sandwich), the length of time they stay and number of tables. If I meet a friend for coffee we usually stay an hour (£10 income from 2 of us), if you have ten tables that’s an average of £100 per hour assuming full occupancy. Then multiply that by the number of hours you think you’ll be busy then do a similar calculation for your quieter hours and that will give you an indication of income.
As a keen cafe user I’ve often been surprised at how many manage to stay in business.

I think that selling take-away drinks is crucial to profits. Most tables in cafes where I am (US big city) are occupied by people on laptops with a dried up coffee cup in front of them. It's virtually impossible to get a seat in a cafe (can you tell it annoys me). So either have limited wifi access (or none) or be firm with chancers.

I've been chatting to the guy who owns the coffee shop across from where I work (near Aldgate East).

He opens only on weekdays because weekend trade isn't worth it due to the location.

He says that average daily takings are £450 (average spend £2.70) with him selling only coffee and a small selection of pastries (really just a token effort). Expanding out for more food would be too much of an investment and not worth the return.

So two people in the shop at NMW is £330 2 plus any additional taxes paid by the employer (13.8%) so £45 2 so around £750 a week for the staffing.

I don't think anyone is getting rich here.

The non franchised one near me which does well is bit of a fried food emporium and is open all night so attracts students, cabbies etc. He makes a killing but it probably isn't the cosy cute place you are picturing.

'Does anyone have any idea of the kind of money I can make from this business?'

Depends on where you are / what you are selling / prices / footfall / reputation / What is popular in the area /what your cafe is like, is it comfy, does it have phone charging sockets for example.

I knw a guy that installed phone charging ports in his cafe and it doubled his income. Literally doubled overnight

OP may as well be considering how long a piece of string is by asking such a generic question

If you are serious , start looking and ask previous owners to see their books of the SPECIFIC business. And even then see that as how it would be if you stuck to their exacting forumla

Every single business is going to be different - you could take over an existing business making a lot of money, and fail. Or you could take over a failing business and make it a success. So much depends on you, your attitude and what you know about the business side of things

I've run cafes, pubs and hotels. The hours are long and the profit margins are not big. You are silly if you don't know what you are getting into.

You won't really believe how badly some members of the public will treat you until you have worked behind a café/shop/pub counter.

DB used to work for a catering equipment company. Some one new would take over a café/pub. Blame the reason for the previous incumbent's failure on the equipment, pay DB to remove old kit and replace with new. Two years later the whole cycle would repeat.

I ran a successful commercial cleaning business after having worked years in the hospitality/hotel and restaurant industry, there is a great reason why I did not go self-employed in the hospitality and restaurant industry. You're asking for something that people can't well qualify, especially from the UK, but IME, it's a great way to get in debt, lose money and wind up dead on your feet from work.

What Obmolov says.

Could you look on Companies House and try and download the accounts from some relevant cafes? Might be a starting point!

Can you look at a going concern and study the books.

I work with these type of businesses on a daily basis - and honestly the profits vary hugely. Location is important - for example some places will have a great summer but rely on local custom during the winter. Some will charge premium prices but thanks to the rent will have less margin than somewhere cheaper.

However if you have a corporate role and think this will make you more money - it’s highly unlikely. My (very modest) business makes more than any of my clients do

Good friend left a professional career and ran a high end cupcake cafe (think Hummingbird Bakery type thing). She was a really great baker. Made a go of it for about five years and managed to make a take home of £30k ish. However:

• eventually sold up as the hours were gruelling, the only way to make that sort of profit was to do most of the cake making herself and do a lot of shifts in the cafe too.
• she picked a cheap spot with good school footfall in an area that then rapidly gentrified, savvy decision making but in some ways right place right time
• she made artisanal cakes and could charge a premium for them

Can you give us some more information to go on, OP? Not necessarily where you live, but information such as rent for a decent space, and the amount of taxes collected?

I remember googling coffee machines once and I stumbled into a forum of coffee shop owners (in Portuguese, else I'd try to find it again). There it was mentioned that merely a good machine that would be constantly on would cost around five thousand pounds.

So, think:
What sort of public would you want to cater for?
This determines not only days and opening times, but also the quality of the food and price, as well as the location.

Then start doing the math:
For the weekly time it will be open, will one helper be enough? How much would you pay them?
The coffee machine, ovens, refrigerators - how much does that cost, how often does it break, what's its energy consumption?
Next: where will the food and coffee be served? If disposable, how much would you spend? If reusable, what's the initial amount to buy it, as well as replace it when it breaks and the costs to wash everything?

Now you need a place. How much is the rent, will any modifications be necessary, what will you spend in water, energy, etc?

Alright then, you've got your costs down. Now, how much do you have to earn to cover those costs, pay your taxes and your own wage?

And finally, is that profit achievable?

The most successful cafes I have known have been those with extra sidelines during the evening like kids birthday parties, music nights. etc
The things you don't need an entertainment license for. They are usually situated on the high street close to established communities.
HTH

I went for a coffee in cafe Nero one day last week , and was horrified at the amount of people who just came in to just use the loos , and actually sat at a table that hadn’t been cleared and used the WiFi
So not spending any money

The cafe I run is rural , so not busy city centre , however , the accounts show that we made £3 k profit last year

In the UK there are various companies (usually coffee roasters) offering How to run a Cafe courses. Usually lasting a couple of days they run through everything you need to know about running a cafe. It will make you think about what you want to do, how much it will costs and how much money you can expect to make based on your business model. Might be worth investing such a thing before making any decisions.

mt parents ran a cafe. It was quite a good one. They sold it as a going concern. While they were there the aim was for both of them to earn just below the average wage in country althought that was them working a 6 day week and not having a day off together.
Cafes are bloody hard work with a massive amount of cleaning.

Don’t do it if you can’t afgord to loose the money you put into it.

I'd also check about your local licencing and training requirements. In some places you have to have completed relevant training and certification before you can run a business serving food - see how long that might take and how much it might cost before you make any decisions!

My lovely independent local coffee shop, great position and serves good coffee, cakes and lunches

They just about break even

www.rightmove.co.uk/commercial-property-for-sale/property-76139705.html

This was an empty shop & looks busy, people queue down the street to get in.

Whether 16 part time and 7 full time staff is viable from over half a million turn over?