Coffee shop cafe outside school

[MauveShaker]

Can I get the thoughts of you lovely lot on an idea.

My husband and I are both in the process of being made redundant (great timing together hey 😩) but we have been saying for a while we would like to do something ourselves rather than for a big corporate.

We are opposite a school and have an old horse stable style building at the bottom of our drive (solid brick not like newer style stables) that we have wanted to convert to a functional building. Since we moved in we have said we’d love to turn it into a little coffee shop/cafe/traditional sweet shop..Jack of all trades haha. We always have parents lingering at the bottom of our drive anyway so why not make it a useable space 💁🏼‍♀️

So… if you were on the school run and next to the school there was a little coffee shop/cafe would you use it? Completely appreciate there’s hurdles like planning permission we’d need to overcome first… this is just a pipe dream idea for now we need to work out if it’s something people would even want. We’re thinking we’d do kid friendly drinks/snacks aswell for the afterschool crowd.

Would love thoughts of if this is something people would use… we don’t have school age children so would be interesting to hear if it’s something people would want.

There's a cafe opposite a Primary school in my (small) town. It's outside the town centre, on a road that looks like it wouldn't have much passing trade.

When it opened, we were all saying it would never work, they were clearly banking on school trade, why would anyone go there, etc etc etc. That was about 10 years ago and it's going great guns!

I guess it probably does get plenty of drop off/pick up trade, but it must have picked up other trade along the way.
If the school mums have a nice coffee at drop off time, then they'll either tell other people or go back at other times. And then the people they tell will tell others, and so on.
There are often groups of cyclists there at the weekend, and we go there after a run sometimes.

One key thing is that they're different from other cafes - they are run by a Portugese couple, so their cakes are all Portugese influenced (they sell a LOT of Pastel de Nata despite being in clear view of Lidl where they're 1/3 of the price!). So if you can be 'themed' (not in a twee/corny/forced way) then you might also be seen as more of a destination.

I think you’re right about the trailer or a vintage van. There’s a catering company we use that had a converted land rover they sell coffee/ cakes/ pastries/ paninis. They also do bigger catering events bbqs / hot / cold buffets and then serve coffee. They are also farmers so not sole income though.

If you get something cute you could do weddings/ festivals. I’d still consider converting the stables though. Depending on location/ demographic something like an art gallery /small event space. We have something local above a cafe which invites artists in to display their work and run workshops. It is nice to buy a coffee and have a mooch. Lots of the more well to sahm do classes there.

Is there enough footfall during the school holidays?