Friend about to open a new Cafe/Coffee shop

[Whatageisit]

A close friend is attempting to start a new business by opening a cafe in a small town centre that already has plenty of differing food establishments. Given the current situation with Covid I am really concerned for her and I can’t decide if my worries are warranted, and if so whether I should keep my mouth shut or not.

To give a bit of info my friend has never run a business before and does not have any experience in this sort of thing, however she is approaching retirement age and I think she believes that this is her last chance to do so. She has no money in savings etc (Has applied for grants) and is about to put a rental deposit down on a building and then spend thousands of pounds refurbishing it and then a hell of a lot of money purchasing all the equipment required for a cafe.

Our location is currently in lock down and with Covid worsening at the moment I am so concerned that this will fail and I do not know what repercussions she will face if it does as I have no experience in this sector either.

She is so so excited and determined to do this as she has been through a very rough time and I very much want her to achieve her dream, but I honestly don’t think it will work.. I hope I am wrong and am just looking for people’s opinions on whether they think it’s a good idea or not.

YABU - Your worries are unfounded and this may work
YANBU - This isn’t a good idea right now

Also in addition would you say anything? Although I don’t think it would make much difference.

Let her do it. Her choice, I’m guessing she isn’t stupid and has done research and thinks is viable

I would say your concerns. If she does it anyway and it fails at least you know you didn’t sit back and see her plunge money into something that didn’t work. If it does work, then great.

Don't offer your opinion unless she asks.

With good internet and seating plans for distacing and working on laptops it could be viable.
Id prob ask her more about her plans, whydoes she think people will choose hers over the other options etc.

I understand why you're worried, but it won't necessarily be a disaster. If she can pitch it right, get the menus sorted if she knows what sort of thing people want etc, it might be okay. Also I know a lot of cafes around here have started doing takeaways or even delivery. If she can offer something that's delivery-friendly then it might be okay. It is scary though.

I understand why you are worried but I don't think you should say anything. You can't shit on her dream. Just wish her the best.

FWIW, my own restaurant has been doing great since we re-opened in August. We've had to change and adapt but we're fully booked Tuesday to Sunday. Really didn't expect it but people still want to eat out and now we offer takeaways that's really popular too, nice alterantive to the pizza/kebab that is on every corner here.

She's absolutely mad, but I'm not so sure you can say this. Dh has a restaurant industry related business (not a restaurant or cafe, but think like a supplier to restaurants and caterers). He also had a business degree and a lot of experience in marketing and social media. He's done just fine (it was scary initially) over lockdown, but it's been completely down to existing contacts and marketing to home cooks and the public. I think someone with no experience, no savings, approaching retirement age would be bonkers to open a cafe right now. She would be much better off looking to purchase an existing business that is for sale and learning as much as she can from the current owners and manager before handover than starting from the ground up, having to buy everything from scratch, hire and train and deal with PAYE and suppliers, etc. Or if she's good at baking or something, start an online business without the overhead of a physical space on the high street. I would personally want to say something, but she may not like what you have to say.

Do you know anyone who has started a similar business? Could you put her in touch with them so she could ask some questions and learn a bit more about the realities of it all?

Thank you everyone for your comments, I certainly don’t want to put a dampener on her dream, apparently a survey was conducted which had some positive results. However it is going to be selling only a certain type of food which worries me as it may greatly reduce the number of people who visit.

No thought has been given to suppliers or employing anyone, she’s decided she’s just going to run it herself in the first instance. Perhaps employers can be found when it is closer to opening? I don’t know anyone who runs a hospitality business and I have very limited knowledge myself so I’m unable to speak to her about it with anything substantial, only that I don’t think it’s a good idea and that won’t make any difference.

I asked her in the beginning if she would run it from home and do deliveries as she really is an amazing cook, but her vision is to have people come to a cozy cafe, sit down, eat and enjoy the atmosphere.

I know someone who opened a cafe from scratch and he put so much work in spending days lurking in the area working out which type of person would use it etc.

He eventually opened in a very upmarket student area and is doing really well (despite COVID) the business/office type area he dismissed as felt the footfall would not provide enough income.

He also worked out who his coffee suppliers would be and does a full range from gourmet to ordinary and now roasts his own coffee.

He also provides training days as a barista etc but he had worked and managed an upmarket cafe abroad whilst a student himself.

The experience and knowledge put him in an ideal situation. Perhaps your friend could work in a cafe first to give her a real insight in what is required.

When you say no experience do you mean no experience of owning a business or no experience of working in a coffee shop? Because ooooh my life is she going to be in for a surprise if it’s the latter!

She's in for a hell of a shock if she's never worked in a cafe before op. I think I'd have to gently voice my concerns.

The level of research that has been conducted is nowhere close to what you described fairislecable, my friend is working on the belief that she just needs to kit the cafe out as she wants (Not the typical cafe layout) and provide the food she’s passionate about and people will come. I don’t know, perhaps that will be the case.

She has not run a business nor worked in a cafe before. I really hope I am wrong, but I think I am going to need to say something, it just doesn’t feel right nodding and smiling along when I’m secretly thinking please don’t do this right now. As a pp said, if it works out then fantastic! but if not then I would have tried.

There will be enough people telling her she must be mad so I wouldn’t say anything at all, unless you are asked directly and even then be tactful.

There are new shop fronts going up in my small town and every time I go past I think why would anyone start a business at the moment?

I think you sound far too invested.

She’s an adult, let her crack on

Often people downplay their plans so she may have done so much more research than she’s letting on

She’s nuts but what can you do? No good can come from you saying something at this point.

I am only so invested because she calls me in excitement to tell me how everything is progressing step by step. I suppose I could tell her to stop but that just seems rude, besides I don’t mind listening to her I’m just concerned.

Besides I don’t see how someone voicing a concern can be ‘too invested’ when they believe someone they deeply care for is about to make a large mistake, whether they are an adult or not.

What's the town like? It might work well.

If you can, get on Radio Four Iplayer, and have a listen to today's PM programme from about 25.30 secs:

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000mqpj

It's a very different story to what's going on in city centres.

Thank you for that link SuitedandBooted!, my friend does actually live in a market town and the experiences discussed on the programme did give me hope that this may work for her. Reflecting on what everyone has said and listening to the show I’ve decided I won’t mention my concerns to her and hopefully this will turn out fantastic, although I will still worry.

Thank you all.