I was wondering that as well lol, I think he was responding to me

where is your coffee shop kr4l?

Fuck, sorry my bad!

Coffeeslut, that's smart!

Would be fun to host Thursday meets here actually. I have a parking area that can hold maybe 30 cars'ish? Under cover too!

kr4l, I like your style and how you explain things. It's straight to the point, and honest. Lot's of people don't want to hear it like that, but i really appreciate it a lot. So thank you. I thought I can be successful because I can put a heart ontop of your latte? Looks like i'm shit out of luck. Darn! Jokes aside though, i'm not looking to become a millionare with this right now, I want to come in a show people a good coffee experience. to be continued.. :)

Will u have condense milk, I don't know why Starbucks don't have condense milk for the coffee, I started using it and I like it.

I'm opening a business in Richmond, so I don't think i have a choice! LOLOL

When's the opening and where I'll be happy to come by.

The Bubble Tea Shop under Superstore on 3 road. Not really a coffee shop haha but I do have it. My old coffee shop I had for 6 years was on West Broadway and Oak. I sold it in July because I was working way too fucking hard, not smart

Yeah let us know when the opening is. I'd love to drop by and chit chat

Personally, I would go to a coffee shop that has a very chill vibe that has enough outlets and great food for me to hang out and work for hours. Been looking for a shop like that lately but haven't really been able to find one besides waves or Starbucks.

Being a marketer, I would definitely say that you want to have at least one thing in your store that is sort of "gimmicky". Create a social media campaign focused on this one thing months before your store opens and it will be packed. Look at Catfe for example, they have a progress bar showing exactly when they are going to be open so people can follow them in somewhat real time, and their idea is gimmicky enough that they have over 8k followers BEFORE they even open! Other examples would be soft peaks and 720 sweets. Social media is here for a reason, utilize it to its fullest potential!

Goodluck and definitely let us know when it opens! I'll be one of the first customers! :)

offer coffee styles around to world?

A Cute Animated Guide To The Many Ways To Brew Coffee - Digg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DJPXoKMNON...1.23.08-PM.png

These are all very important points that should be taken into consideration. I do retail consulting (from a locational and development standpoint) and there are many many variables that can provide you success or failure for your business.

What are the demographics of the area? How is it growing over the next five years? What are the culinary preferences of the potential clientele and are you able to meet them? Is there a lot of current competition? How far out is your primary trade area that you will try to capture from? Is it a 1km radius? Or is this a destination that will pull people from around Richmond?

From a location standpoint... is the leased space easily accessible? Is there a critical mass of commercial space around the cafe? Many businesses fail when they are isolated from other commercial uses. Does it have good visibility from the street in both directions? Is there a lot of pedestrian traffic or is it mainly vehicles? Parking is a huge issue for many cafes/restaurants, do you have enough? People will avoid certain places if they can't park.

On the other hand, if you create a destination that everyone loves to go to and is unique, then many of these questions can get thrown out the window because people will make the effort to go. But these types of places are rare.

Just some things to think about other than the coffee you are serving.

may have spotted your shop under construction. not sure why I didn't notice earlier since I drive past that area often and live quite close. is it across from a td bank? called '12 something something"?

I hope you're talking about dogs just hanging out... otherwise I'm steering clear of the Korean BBQ.

You gotta rock that beach bod, bro. Chicks dig guys with confidence!

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...14397170_n.jpg

#sorrynotsorry

open a business that caters to the republic of marijuana...

where you can toke up with snacks with friends and watch dumb ass shit like rick and morty on comfy ass couches lol

GT5 championship night...... well you did ask in an automotive forum..

Next trend will be a restaurant that makes all food with marijuana. You heard it here first!

@bcrdukes

hahaha.. that will go over well with my old school hong kong family in law's! lol!

Your saying I should have many tv's there? I was thinking of one or two, how many is good?

Any plans to franchise the business out?

If you are going to open up a coffee shop, you'll have to think big... as in 5 or more company-owned, or 20+ franchised.

IMHO, a coffee shop's financials is similar to a convenience store, and it's a hard business.

Restaurants and coffee shops are among the hardest types of businesses to start.

If successful, it'll be a one shop thing (and like kr4l mentioned, he was working his butt off), so plan ahead and think about expanding right from the get-go.

Get a coffee-concept going that differentiates yourself from competitors and duplicate in the Lower Mainland with 10 to 20 stores.

There is where your 10+ industry experience comes in.

It's going to be risky by differentiating, but this is up to your risk-tolerance level.

The key is to manage (work smart, not hard), but you can't do this if you only have one shop, so there is where opening more than 1 shop comes into play.

You can use your previous experience (you mentioned in your first post) AND this successful (hopefully) new coffee shop (after 1 or 2 years of financials) to:

1- Get franchisees
2- Shop around for investors to invest in your corp. to open more coffee shops.

Good luck.

LOL 2 years of operations and then franchise??? Take it easy there dragon!
it's a coffee shop, not a tech venture with VC's angels and seed money.
everyone throws around scaling like it's motherhood and apple pie, but look what happened to Target. Now look at Nordstrom.

Although the I agree with what you're saying to an extent, if you don't start your business with the mentality of opening more or franchising, it'll be very hard to make it happen later on. You should train your staff right off the bat like a franchise would, and have standard recipes, creating a brand etc etc. instead of implementing it when you decide it's time to franchise or grow. When your staff have been doing things one way, and you decide to change the way it's done to make it franchisable, it's actually very hard to implement that into your staff.

Also set goals for yourself. For example. When I opened my shop, after the experience I had with my first cafe and working like a dog, I said ok after 3 months I need to have everything standardized. After 6 months to be hands off. After 1 year, I need to expand to a second store. 2 years 3 stores. So far so good.

However, franchising a coffee establishment is damn near impossible with all the other easy accessible options available.

Failure rate for the food business is also close to 99%. Our old commercial real estate agent was like top 1% yadda yadda sales guy. Awards. All that jazz. Turns out, he keeps selling the same businesses over and over because they all fail and each year he would come visit me and ask if I was selling. I told him I was $xx and he straight up laughed in my face. I ended up finding a buyer on Craigslist for close to asking.

i dont spend time in richmond these days, but somewhere comfortable.
the coffee house near my house has awesome coffee, decor, design, personality, etc.... but its not comfortable. the seats basically all suck and i never want to be there for more than 20 minutes.

its part of business. They probably want the turnover and make money. That's why they put shitty seats in there. So you won't stay longer than 20 minutes.

^if i want to catch up with a friend id rather go to starbucks or waves. this place actually loses business from me despite them serving better coffee. not sure if thats really a winning strategy.

I got some pretty pimp chairs actually, my bar stools on the other hand i'm sure will be replaced after a few months. I'm hoping they break, they are horrible!.. not my choice! I will only have 24 or so seat's so it's not the hugest place in the world.