10 tips for successful cafés

Like many other foodservice venture tips, opening a coffee shop is a risk, with a high failure rate. However, by having a clear strategy from the start on how to succeed, an investor can increase his chances of success when opening a new café.

1. Intelligent preparation

It is important to have a strategy at the beginning. You know perfectly your ideas but you also know what you plan to do, that is, who you want to reach, what customers you want to attract, at what point you take a pen, pencil write draw. Whether a cafe will be a success or a failure depends a lot on the decisions made before it opens. What is the location of your cafe and establishment? Who will be your suppliers? What will your business plan look like, and how will you know if it’s set up to be a pretty big success, or if it’s worthless and will drag you into a loss? Answer all the questions to help ensure a better opening for your business.

2. Get customers

Giving customers a positive first impression of your operation is an extremely important part of building customer loyalty, which will ensure continued traffic and footfall to your café. For example, handing out cards stamped with the option of a significant discount, on your next purchase, is an almost guaranteed way to win a customer back.

3. Think quality not quantity

The quality of the coffee is often more of a sure-fire way to create loyal customers than the large size of the café. People can even walk a few streets away to enjoy the best coffee. Make sure that you keep the coffee freshly ground, it is excellent to grind it close to the customers, that way it is clear that the maximum flavor will be ensured. The taste of the coffee is actually the smell of the coffee anyway, and this will spread throughout the cafe after the coffee has been ground. Invest in good quality equipment needed for coffee and beverage preparation and bar equipment. Offer a variety of quality or home-made pastries and cakes, this can also help attract as many customers as possible.

4. Maximize seating space by minimizing work space

The environment for restaurant, kitchen and cafe staff at peak times when almost every chair is occupied is often times stressful, especially when there are more of them on set. The most efficient way to serve a cafe at busy times is to allow the staff to make the coffee without having to run around to have everything on hand such as milk from the fridge, glasses and scarves from the bar shelves, or throwing trash in the bar trash can. Efficient workstations that are all in one place, such as mini-fridges built into the bar counter, or refrigerated tables, will eliminate the potential stress of preparing, coming into contact with colleagues and thus needing space to manoeuvre around.

5. Hard work

For many, opening a restaurant or café is easy. However, ensuring its success requires hard work, sometimes all day long. No employee is going to care about the business as much as the owner, so the owner must be the driving force in ensuring the operation is running so that the processes that are done are efficient and thus ensure high quality.

6. Make sure your prices are good

Most of the newly established cafes have a problem with competition especially with the price range of coffee from big chains due to the fact that they don’t have a regular supply of coffee the purchase price is quite high compared to cafes like the big chains. They lack a name and recognition which is actually a motivation to create one and something to look forward to. How to do it and how to attract attention? Make your prices according to their profitability, products that have a decent profit margin should cover those on which due to market adaptation is they don’t make a profit at all. This strategy will be perceived as fairer and more acceptable to customers. At the same time, you have the opportunity to be cretinous and captivated by what only you will offer.

7. Have something on offer for everyone

In a café, you should make sure you have something to offer everyone. Offering milk, cream without milk alternatives such as soy, all kinds of sugar including honey or artificial sweeteners to prevent potential customers or even groups of customers from leaving, the more options the better chance of success. With a variety of baked and dark, dessert options, you can fine tune the options to the tastes of different customers. Every coffee lover may also be in the mood for a drink, so it is important to offer other beverages such as tea and a variety of juices, or natural juices that you make directly using on-site juicers and blenders, and other beverage options that will satisfy customers who do not like coffee.

8. Coffee know- how

Know-how is the totality of knowledge, experience, expertise and information necessary for the production or operation and their technical realization…

Although coffee shops may have more characteristics than I would list here, it is clear that their main product is coffee. Proper preparation of different types of coffee drinks, which are know-how you can provide and in such a way that your customers are satisfied.

9. It’s not All About Coffee

Customers who want to spend time in a coffee shop are usually looking for a place where they can relax and read, possibly meet up with friends or get some work done. Make sure the environment is pleasant and conducive to these activities therefore use relaxing music and style options. Offer free Wi-Fi, which is expected almost everywhere nowadays.

10. Have a positive attitude

Relationship harmony and a positive attitude all come from your staff and café environment. Don’t forget the employees and their relationships. Well-being in the workplace is important despite situations at times when the environment is very stressful. It is important in this situation that this is not apparent to the employees when they are issuing the order to the customer. This is essential and has a big impact on customer perception and behaviour. Encouraging a positive working environment can help to ensure that employees are happy, which will have an impact on customer service and the customer experience. Although running a successful café can be very stressful, it can be managed. An owner-operator who always handles conflict and stressful situations calmly and has positive reactions to workplace stress will shift and influence your employees’ behavior,to the customer’s satisfaction.

Although no combination of these tips can guarantee a successful business, but if there is a lack of them it is almost certain that it will lead to failure. To run a successful coffee shop you need a lot of hard work, smarts and a little bit of luck. Business owners should forge good relationships with other businesses in the area, suppliers and employees. You need to realize that a lot can be learned by using and maintaining good relationships of surrounding businesses, it can lead to valuable results.

If you need advice on the implementation and professional equipment of your project, do not hesitate to contact us.