To think a coffee shop is a goldmine?

[Heps9]

How much do you think the franchise owner of a costa shop makes? I am guessing it must be a good amount considering how many there are.

In my town centre - admittedly a large town- with offices, shops and underground station near by- there are: 2 costa, Starbucks, cafe Nero, black sheep coffee, and one independent shop. 6 coffee shops within a 2-3 mins walk.
we also have Greg’s, McDonald’s, pret as well.

Yet all these shops continue to trade so they must be ££ in coffee shops

Wimborne(Dorset) has a beautiful 15th C coffee shop .Right opp the Minster .Lovely staff,reasonable prices, good cakes! One of the top 10 in the world according to trip advisor!(And no I dont have shares in it!)

I get this a lot. I like to try independent places that have made effort with unique decoration and atmosphere but end up not liking the coffee, always too bitter even when I add sweetener or flavourings. So I end up going to cafe nero or greggs as it's so much nicer. I think you have to cater to the masses to be truly successful, and the mass taste isn't usually the objectively best one.

We've got many coffee shops near my work and another opened within the last couple of weeks. All the local facebook groups were bemoaning "yet another coffee shop", yet every time I've gone past it it's been packed. All the coffee shops have lots of customers in them.

We've got a mix of franchises of larger names (Costa, Nero, etc) and independents. Before my office got a decent coffee machine in house I'd go to one of the independents. Their coffee (and warm cinnamon swirls fresh out the oven!) are delicious and much better quality than the shit coffee you get at Costa. Every Costa I've ever had has been awful and watery, so I have to be totally desperate for one to go there!

The new one near my office must cost a fortune to run though. They have 6-7 staff on each day and have had to kit out an old shop, so stripped it right back and started from scratch. They've done a good job and it looks beautiful, but £££! They do, however charge £7 for a toasted sandwich, so that and a coffee is well over £10. This is in an area that's known for being pretty well off though and there are a lot of "ladies that lunch" types with their cliques, so it will probably do very well. It's a franchise of a group that has over 100 shops nationwide now, so they obviously do OK.

Would I want to do it though? Not a chance! I did my stint in a cafe at 16/17 and my stomach still churns at the smell of a fried egg!

YABU. I watched a YouTube video about independent coffee shops. They only make around 80p from every cup of coffee sold. Post tax they made about £20k pa.

I felt bad for them but it won't stop me having coffee at home instead of outdoors.

I get some free coffee vouchers from work but they're for a big, bad chain sadly.

In the right place they can do well. In the wrong place where there is lots of competition less well.

I always remember one place I thought about where they really needed a coffee shop and I was convinced it would make a mint as it always had a lot of people waiting around and it had a captive market.

Sure enough 6 months later a coffee stall appeared.

There's a busy station where I live with lots of platforms plus an Overground (Ginger line) stop/terminal and bus routes. There are 3 local naice cafes (1 same branch) but someone's recently opened a tea/coffee/snacks van on the road before the station but not inside the station and they're cheaper than all the cafes/coffee shops.

It reminds me of at the same station a few years before lockdown, before the naice station cafe was there, there was a tea/coffee van and he used to sell fairy cakes (packaged), which greedy me liked.

There's a certain area where I used to get an express (now super loop) bus, where there's nothing, only a Harvester pub with a car park. Me and a few of the bus regulars used to say how lovely it'd be to get a coffee/croissant if they put a cabin (like Caffe Nero/Costa/Starbucks) at the car park somewhere as we would all use it. About a 5-10 min walk away where the bus stop is earlier, there's a small Spanish cafe which sells coffee/tea but no pastries and a small newsagents/Nisa shop which also doesn't sell pastries, which surprised me.

I believe the Costa in my hospital, is the busiest one in the country.

I get some free coffee vouchers from work but they're for a big, bad chain sadly.

Which chain is bad?

Franchise fees, wages, electricity cost of products, packaging/cups etc. Must have sell a lot of coffee

Most of them I imagine

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/mar/01/children-work-for-pittance-to-pick-coffee-beans-used-by-starbucks-and-nespresso

Yes some coffee shops/ cafes are an absolute gold mine. It all depends on footfall.

We own one. People are always surprised by how we live, as they assume we must be 'scraping by', if they haven't seen the cafe. It's huge and extremely busy in a prime location.

We really aren't scraping by. If it was such bad business and everyone was going bust, no one would do it. Ours is independent but trying to start opening up others now. It's not an easy business, but some people really do make a very good living from it. People also assume restaurant owners must all be on the brink of bankruptcy. They're not..

Hospitality is a tough business, but it does work out well for some of us.

It's not an easy life though, by any means. But then, what is ?

There's a vair naice independent cafe near me which says it sources all its cakes from local bakers. Which I find hilarious because "sources" means picking them off the shelf and the "local bakers" are actually Costco. But I guess it's cheaper than making them in house and the mark up on the cookies and cakes must be fairly high.

I always just assumed big chains would take a hit in an area until they'd squeezed out the independents and had the market to themselves, or they were essentially billboards for the more profitable items sold in supermarkets.

That's terrible! I think you should report them for misselling to Trading Standards!

I’ve tried all sorts of posh coffee over the years but for me, nothing beats the lovely smoothness of Lavazza. Especially the Oro one. If I was meeting someone for coffee I’d suggest Caffe Nero which I think is the nicest of the chains.

@voiceofastar is that instant coffee? It's the only kind I have at home, the cafetiere sits pristine in its packaging.

We have 11 - eleven - Costas in the very small city I live in. Eleven!

I was going to mention about business rates etc. A friend of mine had a little cafe for a year. In a popular tourist area, but far from any major cities. Business rates were £17,500 for the year and her rent to the landlord was a further circa £15,000 a year.

She nearly lost her mind trying to sell enough coffee and bacon butties to make it a going concern.

No, sorry, I can’t stand instant coffee! I have an espresso machine. One of the best things I’ve ever bought and less faff than a cafetière.

The independent cafe/coffee shop where I live which does well also does lunches but has been going for a good 20 years and is in a prime location, just next to the Sainsburys and in a small row of shops. I mentioned to the owner the other day what time did they open, he said 7.30am weekdays. The owners are always friendly which counts for a lot.

The other small American diner/cafe has been going at least since late 80s, has undergone family bereavement but seems to make enough for it to be a family business, over/after lockdown they changed to be an American diner which was a good move.

The chain of coffee shops, Brown and Green, started when artisan cafes were just becoming trendy, at least in our part of the world. They used to make special elaborate cupcakes for Red Nose Day, pakoras, soup, croissant/sandwich/coffee offer plus fruit which was sold at their first proper cafe at a station.

Then they opened a proper sit down cafe but aimed it at professionals as well as at families with children, so targetting both markets. The food has always been consistently good. Over lockdown they delivered food and had 'recipe boxes', and they had a huge cafe in a local big park where you can hire out the venue. The most important is that their food and drink is not ridiculously overpriced like some cafes are (£4 for a bog standard croissant which looks like it came from Sainsburys?!).

A new venue opened near us recently but is a cafe/bar combo, they started off by offering savoury muffins and cakes but when we next visited there was none of that and no decaff option which was a pity.

The thing which I'll say and which seems to matter, if you're in an area with lots of cafes/coffee shops and therefore lots of footfall, you can survive but if you make a mistake, e.g. with food or drink being consistently bad then you won't go there. One of the venues I mentioned in my PP, my DB went there recently, got takeaway coffees for him and his DW plus biscuit/cake things but both of them said the coffees were undrinkable, they were driving so it's not like they could go back. I was reminded of one time I went there though, dashed in, got a tea in a hurry and came outside (I'd asked for milk to be in it) and they hadn't put milk in at all! Black tea, yuck!

For me a lot these days, I'll go to Greggs or Waitrose or somewhere with cheap tea/coffee when I'm out though I do go to independent/chain coffee shops too. One local Costa I visited recently when out, the man almost spat at me, he was so rude. I won't be returning there.

Live abroad but it's the same here

There are four or five huge coffee shops within one kilometre of where we live and they're all always packed

That’s cheap to me our local one had started charging £4.10 for a coffee and £6 for a slice of cake! And we aren’t even london based! It’s always busy in there but we try to avoid it now because of the prices.

In my small market town we have 4 independents, a Waitrose cafe, a coffee #1 and a Costa. Everyone is very pro independents so they are pretty popular and they have started opening earlier to grab the pre office run, two in particular are v popular. However the Costa, from being the only one in town maybe a decade ago with one other independent, still has it's regulars and is still going so must be making enough!