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  • #16
    Re: Coffee Van Pictures

    Thanks for the response guys

    Notice this thread is getting a lot of outside hits, think mainly cause it comes up 4-5th on google when searching for "coffee van". If you are an outsider feel free to create an account and ask any questions you have or just PM or e-mail me rogerbright@internode.on.net

    Congratulation BrighterSide! your van looks very neat.

    Where is your business in Autralia!

    Do you roast your on coffee!

    Good luck for your business.

    Cheers,

    Serge
    Serge thanks for your compliment and well wishes, weve been getting a lot of good feedback about the van, guess those endless hours designing and planning it paid off.

    Our business is garaged in Frankston, Victoria and we visit the surrounding areas for our daily run. For events we travel anywhere from 20mins to a hour and a half away. For our coffee we use Veneziano Forza blend, the crew there have been quite helpful.


    BrighterSide

    Are you selling the van on eBay?
    Framey I did list it briefly on there, wanted to see what type of interest it would gather and had a good response. If the right offer came along wed consider selling the van/and or run but atm Im quite happy with the hours, income and type of work. Not many people can boast working outdoors all days with limited hours and steady source of coffee and smoothies within a meter reach.

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    • #17
      Re: Coffee Van Pictures

      Fresh_Coffee thanks for another perspective on things.

      Dont be too hard on those who develop coffee vans.....there is a reason for the expense not the least of which is the initial cost of the van. Most seem to like Merc Vito and at a minimum of around $45000.00 for a plain white empty van, theres the starting point from where the dollars can only keep piling up.
      I recognise some franchisers that are out there have a lot going for them, in particular for people who are new to the idea all together and want the security of a support system and are willing to pay for it. The most common vehicles the franchisers use are Volkswagen Transporters, Mercerdes Vitos and mitsubishi Express.

      While many have a ergonomic setup in the rear I think most of them fail to utilise the space presented to them in the mid section where most store their generator/alternator. As the power generator units are usually sealed off there is no reason why this space cant be more effectively used for anything other then storage.

      I disagree with the comment regarding that they design vans for their convenience not that of the user. I think you will find their designs are under constant "review" according to the feedback they get from their operators.
      One thing I find intersting is that some franchises swap what coffee machine they use in their van quite frequently, alternating from manual to automatic and then to another machine all together in the same period. Another thing I noticed is that not all rears areas use the space to the best they can, rather then moulding or shaping the stainless steel and other materials, which is more time consuming, they use straight unbent sheets that would reduce produce production time and costs but doesnt provide the optium space.

      You would well know that when you start from scratch you spend a great deal of time designing, building, redesigning and changing what you built in the first place. This is time consuming and expensive. The time consuming aspect is a double edged sword...while you are redesigning something that didnt work well in the first place, or having to line up new subies because the old ones arent reliable or did a bad job that has to be redone or they coudnt be bothered spending the time on doing something from first principles like this, the van operator is losing income which until someone points this out, is a significant if hidden impost in the equation....you buy a ready made unit and you are ready to go immediately.
      Agree with you here totally, I researched the industry for over a year before I decided to make the jump myself. Luckily however I had employment and did the research in my spare time/days off. If you were to quit your job and start from scratch researching it and sourcing out builders then you would be cutting into your capital/savings.

      Lastly, the van developer is entitled to a fair return for his work so add some kind of percentage to the 90 gs as fair recompense.
      Of course they are and agree here, if they didnt do this there wouldnt be so many coffee van franchises out there, some however you can tell have larger margins in their vans then others. Also to keep in perspective is that unless the company is selling the license for the vans that their main money is made by royalities/admin/stock/kilo returns. Some use the royalty system while others make their cash by admin fees and a rebate by the coffee supplier per kilo purchased, on top of that is the markup in the everday products that the franchiser provides to the franchisee users.

      The thing I really disgree with however is paying fees to the developer for purchasing a "territory"....what territory?
      Agree with you and thundergog here and believe its one of the main reasons people tend to shy from franchises at times, as well as the initial startup cost. The franchises will draw you up a territory irrespective of other vans operating in the area and happily plod you in there proclaiming that this is your territory and not to wonder from it. Some help you setup your initial run while others give you a few weeks training and then plop you out in the cold to establish and maintain your own run.

      I am not "standing up" for franchise van conglomerates and dont have anything to do with them, but I think the readers here need to have a balance in comments they read.
      Again I agree, I welcome anyone to disagree or correct me or just provide a differnt perspective on things so those considering making a forray into the arena have all the information available to them. At the moment on the web their is very few sources for open, frank and independent discussion on the matter with most information people currently obtain about the industry are from the franchise websites themselfs.

      Regards


      Roger



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      • #18
        Re: Coffee Van Pictures

        Hi there, only just joined but have found this post on google. My wife an I have 3 mobile espresso vans in Auckland,NZ. It has really taken off here with at last count over 50 vans in auckland. We did it ourselves, our first van an old Hiace with a 2 group rancilio gas heated, invertor power setup. Cost $20,000.00. Now use 3 groups for better steam pressure retention. Use the mighty Ford Transit as its wider.We have had a few franchises open up here but I struggle to see how the operators made money. They work one day a week for the boss.

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        • #19
          Re: Coffee Van Pictures

          HI bantam and welcome

          Iv heard the gas machines have taken a real hold in NZ, not to many operate with gas in Australia strangely enough except a few carts I know of. Do you have any problems with recovery/operating costs or does it all work smoothly?

          I think one of the biggest problems is availability here in Aus, when i was starting up I looked into a gas 2 group rang about 10 sellers and only one could offer one, a Promac, that had to be specially imported from Italy and several month wait as made on order. Suffice to say that turned me of it and got a San Marino 2 group instead but in some ways I regret not buying a 10/15amp machine.

          Curious to which franchises have made into across the tasman? You have Cafe2u expanding into UK now and they seem to be taking off in a big way over there, like you said however the franchise fees would kill you. Know of one operator who runs a cafe2u van and has franchise fees, marked up stock and territory limitations, seems all to restrictive for my liking.

          It becoming at all cutthroat on the runs in Auckland now with so many vans operating?

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          • #20
            Re: Coffee Van Pictures

            Do you need to have any council permits for these types of operations?
            Like are there any restrictions on where a van is allowed to operate from?

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            • #21
              Re: Coffee Van Pictures

              Originally posted by Sullo link=1159868364/15#19 date=1185705233
              Do you need to have any council permits for these types of operations?
              Like are there any restrictions on where a van is allowed to operate from?
              In a word YES!

              Ensure that you do your homework very well before embarking on this type of venture. The city of yarra in Melbourne, for example puts a blanket NO on any requests....

              Gotta lurve the concept of local Councils and their "MyLaws" - aka bylaws....Laws that some person thought up in their ratepayer provided car on the way to work :

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              • #22
                Re: Coffee Van Pictures

                Gotta love the local councils they have a finger in every pie and do almost nothing for it. Although they do "some" good but the fingers in all pies thing gets me when they do bugger all, just anyone getting renovations permits and council approvals, they LOVE councils!

                This would be something I would seriously consider if I had the time to seriously consider it and the capital to start. Having worked at building sites youd get used to a certain "brand" of coffee van and youd climb down 4 levels of scaffolding jump over everytime to get there for the good stuff, the bad ones depended on where you were on site depended on if it was worth getting there for just "brown stuff"

                So Chris, I take it a call to your local council to get a copy of mylaws in writing bea good idea?

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                • #23
                  Re: Coffee Van Pictures

                  Yeppers Sullo- I cant recomment that enough...Some examples of stuff I experienced whilst in the cafe business:

                  City of Whitehorse
                  They have a star based ratings system for food outlets. We got 5 stars (tops) each year- except for the year the inspector found a 5cm length of silicone which had lifted near a sink :....So, time comes to sell, and all of a sudden there are "issues" preventing a sale:

                  1. In the section of our coolstore used to store ONLY unopened food, the shelves themselves were only particle board- which we inherited with the business. No problem until the sale.

                  2. A single bowl sink used only to rinse leaves etc as we had another sink to pre-wash before the diswasher. This was an issue as well- What if we washed dishes in that single bowl sink?

                  Darebin....
                  We discuss wind barriers to go outside our cafe with the relevant my-laws buffoon...The mylaw states "substantially clear". We had our barriers made to 1.2 metres or whatever they wanted with the bottom 40cm black with small branding- so we thought that we had jumped through the hoops...

                  When they arrive, we get slapped with a remove them immediately or we revoke your permit compliance order. It seemed that "substantially clear" was then, at the order of the inspector, defined to include a 15cm clear strip at the bottom. On paper anywhere at that stage? Nope... The result? A further 2k out of pocket to have the barriers modified. >

                  City of Yarra
                  I live near a town hall and see perhaps 100 ratepayer funded cars filling our street and local carpark. I assume that almost every employee who works there must get a car these days. A friend who rents near me wanted a parking permit to park outside his house. Youd think that a license, passport and pile of bills with his name and that address would be enough? Nope- Copy of the lease in his name is required or no cigar. As for his housemate, I guess she has no hope whatsoever because her name isnt on anything...

                  So my opinion is that they do very little other than leech as much as they can...

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                  • #24
                    Re: Coffee Van Pictures

                    Local councils serve as nurseries for budding politicians before they move on to state parliaments.

                    As one premier once--correctly, in my view--- remarked: all city councils are good for is collecting the garbage.

                    And even that is done by specialist contractors.

                    They have become out of control bureaucracies taking on roles beyond traditional functions. We now have resident council artists, youth officers, community development officers, social welfare.... all courtesy of our rates.

                    All I want is for the council to arrange the garbage collection and keep the roads in good order. If they stuck to that charter my rates would probably be 1/3rd the amount.

                    And, to bring this back in topic, there would be a few more coffee carts roaming the streets. ;D

                    -Robusto

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                    • #25
                      Re: Coffee Van Pictures

                      The 3 Rs:
                      Rates, Roads and Rubbish.

                      That should be it.

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                      • #26
                        Re: Coffee Van Pictures

                        Your brevity sums it up nicely TG. Well done.

                        -Robusto

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                        • #27
                          Re: Coffee Van Pictures

                          Originally posted by robusto link=1159868364/15#23 date=1185711511
                          there would be a few more coffee carts roaming the streets.
                          I can see it now, coffee vans roaming the streets ala Mr Whippy-style. Now theres a business venture.  Not sure what tune would be playing. Blurs Coffee & TV???.  

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                          • #28
                            Re: Coffee Van Pictures

                            Coffee Express? Cafe Express? Go Go Cafe? Mmmm. Give Mr Whippy a run for his money.

                            --Robusto

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                            • #29
                              Re: Coffee Van Pictures

                              What....not Mr Espresso or Mr Crema (Im sure the names are already taken!).

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                              • #30
                                Re: Coffee Van Pictures

                                I was wandering the bay of evil earlier, shoudlnt been concentrating on something I was bidding on, saw a coffee cart thingy dodat. Asked bro in law b4 he went to work if I could stick it in his garage and have all the coffee making roasting stuff on that in one area, he said after we make the pergola couldnt we put it there??
                                This yes steve go ahead thing must run in the family, if only hed let me plumb a machine in , in the kitchen......

                                big bad machine I will have you one day.....

                                thanks for posting this thread brighter its a good one.

                                Sullos
                                Frustrated Caffieneless one

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