What makes a GOOD place to drink coffee?

[GWhit]

Hey, I have worked in a few coffee shops/bars-which is mainly where my ideas have come from, and so I've had some experience with most, if not all, of the things you mention above. So hopefully, that experience packed with some of the great inspiration and ideas from you lot, things should come up trumps!

I am very interested with the register being a Mac, is it custom software or off the shelf software?

[Beanie]

With job #1, he uses Excel but it works GREAT If you're familiar with it, I can email you how it's set up ...and you can prolly use another spreadsheet/database programme if you wish The 'sales' tab in the worksheet is basically a look-up table with a simple totalling formula. The other tabs have info such as: Product Summary which basically defines the codes (such as 'E' for espresso, 'DE' for double espresso, etc); Sales per product; Sales per hour.

With job #2, it's also a Mac as a register but he uses a 'made-for-purpose' software which I think is not as straight-forward I'm not as familiar with it yet, but already, there's way too many steps and too much time compared to job #1. I like the set up @ #1 better. I don't remember the name of the thing... but I'll ask him on Thursday & where he got it and for how much

[GWhit]

That would be most amazing if you could do that thanks. I like the idea of the first one with excel. I suppose it would pretty straight forward and cost effective to build small barebone systems and network them to a host in an office for quick and easy transactions and purchase tracking. Thats a great idea!

...keep em coming! They're all really interesting guys!

[marionhaste]

We have just started our second year and have gone down the relax and chill route with a laid-back atmosphere, great music and a sign up that says your table is yours for as long as you want it - within reason.

We have also gone down the Fairtrade, locally-sourced and home-made route for coffee and food, which is earning us a lot of repeat business, especially among locals - we reckon around half our trade is local, which underpins us in the quiet winter months. This is crucial and you need to give soul-destroying wet Wednesdays in February some thought.

Your customers, in the end, will dictate where you go. Ours are coming back not only for the coffee - which attracts everything from die-hard double esps to almond latte-types - but for the food and, particularly, the sticky cakes, which are all made on the premises. I cannot tell you what a market there is for take-away cake. I would never have thought it. We had planned to expand our coffee range, but are being led in quite a different direction by our customers.

The bottom line is not to sneer and to listen to what people want and don't try to impose upon them something they don't want.

This is all in my very humble opinion, of course. Very 'umble indeed.

[Gwencafe]

The trinity for me is Great Coffee, a bite to eat, and a place to plug in my laptop. My current two favorites score 2 out of 3 on this (both have Great Coffee, one has nice snacks, and the other enough power outlets).

Yeah, so I usually start at the one with the food and then go up to the other one afterwards.

[motoman]

Unusually for me I am being serious on this issue.

Before you do anything you must do a survey of the area. Location is of prime importance, how many people walk past the shop every hour, is there good parking. It doenn't matter how good the coffee is if there is no one around to drink it.

When you find your shop, before you go ahead and rent, you must just hang around for hours and look at your potential customers. Without being snobbish you must consider if they are coffee drinkers or greasy spoon devotees. The more people that pass your door the more chance that a very very small percentage of them will call in. How well or badly do other cafe's in the area perform.

If you live withing driving distance of any TMCers establishments, go there, talk and learn.