Wake Up And Smell The Coffee

Wake Up and Smell The Coffee

Whether you're a town centre coffee bar, high street pub, village restaurant or boutique hotel, quality coffee is a license to print money.

The 'Costa Effect' is prevalent in so many town centres: first one coffee chain, then a rival opens up just up the round and then, suprise suprise, the third opens shortly after. But what's more suprising is that they are always busy. Take a look. Pop down to your nearest Starbucks or Caffe Nero. Count the number of people inside. If you really want a fright sit in there for an hour and make a mental note of how many people they serve - then multiply that number by the price of an average Capuccino - let's say £2.75.

Now if you factor in that the 'Big 3' coffee chains are making 75-80% GP across the board you start coming up with some really scary numbers!
Now the biggest thing with coffee is doing your research and getting your offer right to start with. Close your eyes for a minute and then list all the types of coffee you can think off...

...any more?

How about these...

Americano - Quite simply hot water with a shot of espresso added.
Cappuccino - Espresso (1/3) steamed milk (1/3) and frothed milk (1/3)
Café Frappé - Strong coffee (1/2) is mixed with ice cream (1/2) in a blender.
Caffe Latte/Café au lait - Normal strength coffee (1/2) with warm milk (1/2).
Café Lungo - A 'long-pull', allowing more water to flow through the ground coffee but still not over-extracting the brew 100/120 ml.
Café Ristretto - A short or 'restricted' espresso, where the flow of water through the brew head is stopped at about 25 ml.
Con Panna - Straight shot of espresso topped with whipped cream.
Espresso - Coffee brewed with the espresso method 40 ml to 50 ml.
Espresso Doppio - Double serving of espresso.
Flavoured Latte - A 12 oz. latte flavoured with 1 oz. of flavour (Vanilla, caramel etc.). Sizes vary.
Layered Latte - Single serving of espresso poured over the back of a spoon into a glass of steamed milk. Done correctly the coffee will float in a solid line
Latteccino - A cross between a latte and a cappuccino.
Macchiato - Single serving of espresso marked with one or two tablespoons of frothed milk.
Mocha - A chocolate flavoured milk based espresso, espresso (1/3) brewed into frothed milk (1/3) where cocoa (1/3) has been dissolved.
Romano - Single serving of espresso served with a fresh lemon peel.

And quite a few more besides. Most of these are very easy to do and can be produced from the same machine, but it is very important that you get your staff trained to do it well. Coffee can have a wonderful taste that can make people linger around drip feeding money into you business but if you get it wrong they'll soon be stomping back across to Caffe Nero and your hard work in developing a good offer will be for nothing.

Before you can start selling any however, you need to get yourself a decent coffee machine. There are many different types of coffee making machines out there and can range in price from £400 - £7000. However, most of the time your better off leasing or hiring a machine from a reputable company. In fact, many will provide free training (to help overcome the problem above), discounted coffee and regular servicing of your machine in order to get your business. There are far too many companies for me to list but a good starting point is a Company called Darlingtons Coffee. I've used them before and found there service and quality to be excellent. Check out my useful websites link for their wedsite.

But coffee doesn't just stop with Capuccino's latte's and double machiato's - try experimenting with other ideas. Cafettiers are a great way of making the last part of a meal that extra bit special. Plus you won't find them in Costa so perhaps you can use this as a Unique Selling Point. Diversify into tea's and experiment with iced drinks during the summer months. Incentivise your staff to sell coffee's with or after meals and watch you 'spend per head' line jump up.

Run a 'coffee collectors' card to encourage repeat business, free upsizing or even bottomless cups (not literally of course). You'll still be returning a fantastically healthy profit and providing your customers with a quality offer.
Talking of offers, don't forget decaf options as well as soya milk and skimmed milk!

I could go on forever but I think you've probably got the picture by now! So grab yourself a coffee and start planning.

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