Following a dream: consultant to cafe owner

[lydiangel83]

I've always loved cooking baking made some
Cakes for friends weddings etc. Confident in my menu and good business skills from management consulting background. About to get redundancy payout at the end of Mat leave and possibly some cash from a property sae. DH very risk averse but I feel like the odds are lining up for me to open / run a cafe as one is for sae in our small market town.

I've done alright in the corporate world but always hated it and always wanted to work for myself and in my dreams own a cafe / deli. I often have ideas on how local businesses can improve and grow, but never done it myself.

Any thoughts/ points to watch / similar experiences of shifting from corporate world to self employed / cafe owner?

I've just watched a cafe open and do really well in our small town...market town too.

We already had three or four cafes and a bakery but they're all very hippy-ish and the biggest is a vegan one. The bakery was basic...nothing special.

The new cafe looks beautiful...it's not to everyone's taste I expect, but it's done in a traditional English teashop style, lots of vintage stuff and lovely cakes and coffees.

People have packed it out every single day since it opened. It's our one "fancy" cafe and it's proved a massive hit. She also takes orders for Birthday and Wedding cakes etc.

Conversely, my friend recently opened a gallery...selling local art and running workshops in the same town and it's struggled badly. People don't have a lot to spend on art but something a bit special, they will cough up. Saying that, the prices in the new cafe are very reasonable indeed.