Start & Run a Coffee Bar. Tom Matzen

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ of roasting is in determining which bean is better at which roast and in blending different beans together to produce a roast with the results you want. See Chapter 9 for more on roasting.

      For the remainder of the book, we will refer to all coffee bar concepts as a “coffee bar” for simplicity’s sake.

      6. Choosing Your Products and Services

      What products will appeal to your customers? Will you offer beans for home use? Food and baked goods? Gourmet teas? Coffee-related gift items? Brewing equipment? Below are some of the basic products and services most successful coffee bars offer.

      6.1 Products

      6.1a Gourmet coffees

      Gourmet coffees are the liquid coffees you will serve on a daily basis. We recommend featuring the following “daily roasts”:

      • A signature medium-roast house blend

      • A dark roast

      • At least one flavored coffee

      • Decaffeinated coffee (if the demand is high)

      6.1b Flavored coffees

      Flavored coffees represent up to 40 percent of the liquid coffee market. By offering at least one flavor a day, you are satisfying the needs of a large percentage of a market you might otherwise not capture. Flavored bean sales are also a great suggestive sell to flavored-coffee lovers.

      6.1c Specialty and iced coffees

      Specialty coffees include the espresso-based drinks such as cappuccinos, lattes, and mochas, served hot or cold.

      6.1d Other coffee products

      Other coffee products may include items such as coffee-flavored chocolate bars or espresso-flavored ice cream. A great favorite among North American customers is chocolate-covered espresso beans.

      6.1e Baked goods

      Baked goods include muffins, scones, cakes, biscotti, cookies, and squares. The key here is to provide a wide enough range of baked goods to appeal to your traffic flow while still maintaining a clear focus on your product line.

      6.1f Coffee-related gift items

      Gift items include mugs, coffee plungers, other coffee makers, and espresso equipment.

      6.1g Breakfasts, lunches, and other foods

      These products include quiches, soups, salads, sandwiches, paninis and wraps.

      6.1h Whole bean coffee — retail and wholesale

      Plan for a huge focus on retail and wholesale bean business. Your bean sales volume can quickly grow to a steady, long-term revenue stream made up of a loyal clientele (especially if you are doing in-store roasting). We recommend setting a first-stage goal of being able to pay your rent from wholesale bean volume alone.

      6.1i Gourmet teas

      There are a number of beautifully packaged, high-grade teas that can be a nice complement to your coffee selection. Loose teas are very popular among tea lovers because they are typically made from higher grade tea leaves. The challenge with loose teas, however, is containment. If you are going to sell loose teas, it is a good idea to carry a line of tea balls (infusers) or, alternatively, sell loose tea in gauze tea bags. Gauze tea bags expand when steeped in hot water (unlike paper tea bags), allowing the tea leaves to reach their full flavor.

      6.1j Juices and smoothies

      Freshly squeezed juices and health blends can be a great addition to your product line and offer your customers a cool, healthy alternative to coffee.

      6.2 Services

      What services will appeal to your customers?

      6.2a Custom roasting service

      We recommend you make custom roasting the heart of your business. Because you will be roasting in small quantities (assuming you decide on a roaster/retailing concept), you will be able to offer not only fresh roasted coffee beans but also custom roasted beans. Custom roasting means blending and roasting to the individual tastes of a customer. A customer may order, for example, a blend of Guatemalan and Peruvian beans roasted to a medium-dark roast.

      Custom roasting also means you can develop signature blends for your wholesale accounts. A large restaurant or hotel may want to market the coffee you provide them as their own blend. A hotel in Vancouver for example, may want to call one of its variations the “Vancouver Hotel Breakfast Blend” and promote the coffee in its hotel rooms and on its restaurant menus. With a small batch roaster you will be able to provide this marketing opportunity to wholesale accounts.

      A custom roasting service will be a key selling feature for all the bean business you do.

      6.2b Free home delivery service

      A free home delivery service can be a great way to launch your whole bean coffee business. You can easily plan drop-off routes along your way to and from the coffee bar in early morning or evening. Five stops a day, five days a week can translate into an additional $15,000 in revenue per year (based on a $12 per pound purchase price).

      6.2c Email or voicemail bean ordering service

      This is a service that only requires a bit of promoting. With this service, you can encourage your customers to call or email ahead to place their bean order, making your roasting efforts that much more efficient.

      6.2d Wholesale coffee services

      As we indicated above, wholesale coffee volume can quickly grow to cover major expenses such as your rent and labor costs. A wholesale coffee service involves giving discounts off your retail price for larger coffee orders and possibly working in conjunction with a finance company to provide brewing equipment to your large accounts. Typically, you would offer a 30 percent discount off retail price for orders of five pounds or more.

      6.2e Office coffee services

      Coffee is supplied to thousands of offices across North America on a daily basis.

      6.2f Free services

      In today’s competitive marketplace, we believe it is important to have free wireless internet. If you are not offering it, you may lose customers to the coffee bar down the street that is. Free Wi-Fi also encourages longer visits with an associated increased average expenditure per customer (in theory). The argument against encouraging longer visits СКАЧАТЬ