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The worst coffee of my life. A coffee snob is born.

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  • #16
    Re: The worst coffee of my life. A coffee snob is born.

    Yes- been there, done that...Did ok, but never again.

    Cafes are very often marginal as by the time you do the volume to make them viable, you need another staff member. Coffee is more profitable than food, as there is usually more wastage in food.

    For anyone who thinks a cafe is a cash cow, all I can suggest is get yourself a week of work experience and then come back to us with your findings.

    Most cafe owners have to do 60+ hours. Alternately, the money is better in the bank!

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    • #17
      Re: The worst coffee of my life. A coffee snob is born.

      Agree with cjn. Had a small juice bar many years ago so understand what these cafe owners go through in terms of meeting rent. Some days you cover the entire months rent in the one day other days you make a loss. If you calculate the amount of time you put into the business you may as well get a 9 to 5 job and work for somebody else. Which is what I ended up doing. It is satisfying to have built something and made something but at the end of the day I want to spend time with the family. The Juice bar in terms of margin was highly profitable, but guaranteeing that you would have 100+ customers a day is impossible. It depends on so many variables that you cannot control. The weather, events, holidays...the weather! Then you add up all the hours youve worked in a week and the money you made....how much do you make per hour? Easier to work for somebody else.

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      • #18
        Re: The worst coffee of my life. A coffee snob is born.

        Its good to see so many people here jumping in to counter the classic flawed comment above by someone looking in from the outside.

        Undoubtedly one of the main reasons why there are so many food outlets (lets call them that....it is flawed to call everything a cafe as it does make everyone think these are all businesses that have something to do with coffee, which also leads to them all thinking they are in "the coffee industry" when they are actually in the food industry and have a coffee machine the same as they have a post mix machine and a vacuum cleaner. Are they then also members of the soft drink industry or the cleaning industry?

        ........getting back to my point, one of the main reasons why food outlets very often serve less than a satisfactory cup of coffee is because the retail clients themselves have no coffee education and are accepting mediocre product. ie the general public as a whole, is not very well educated about espresso coffee. Why should they be, they are emerging from generations of instant and filter coffee use at best, and into an explosion of interest in all things coffee and espresso / cappyouchino / lartaye that is accellerating beyond imagination. Dont confuse the market as whole with your CoffeeSnobs circles and the like that have a vastly elevated stanmdard of coffee education, but that makes up only an infinitesimal part of the market as a whole.

        Put that together with big turnover of young and casual staff with little or no training, that no one is willing to spend money on to train because they will be gone in  6 weeks, (and who are not necessarily interested anway....how many classes have I done with students that didnt want to be there or listen) and you start to get the picture. Not everyone cares.....including food outlet managers and owners.....and when was it made compulsory for them to care?

        Its all about an awareness brought about by gradual education of the total market....market place evolution.....that takes much more time than you think, and thats enough from me.

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        • #19
          Re: The worst coffee of my life. A coffee snob is born.

          Originally posted by 516572647F48547871717272170 link=1330755650/17#17 date=1330989816
          ........getting back to my point, one of the main reasons why food outlets very often serve less than a satisfactory cup of coffee is because the retail clients themselves have no coffee education and are accepting mediocre product. ie the general public as a whole, is not very well educated about espresso coffee. Why should they be, they are emerging from generations of instant and filter coffee use at best, and into an explosion of interest in all things coffee and espresso / cappyouchino / lartaye that is accellerating beyond imagination. Dont confuse the market as whole with your CoffeeSnobs circles and the like that have a vastly elevated stanmdard of coffee education, but that makes up only an infinitesimal part of the market as a whole.
          Good point. To further add to this, the general public grew up with a "good" cup of "hot" coffee "strong and bitter". I was recently at a town on a rare holiday with my wife and daughter. It was a small seaside town with mostly an older demographic. Breakfast at a busy cafe I had a latte which was scolding hot and bitter. The same day I happened across a coffee house which do their own roasting. This place was completely empty. After ordering another latte that day, the owner ground the roasted beans as he dosed and looked like he took pride in making the coffee. perfect temperature and silky textured milk. I complimented him on his coffee and he was excited to discuss all things coffee with me. He told me it was difficult to educate people and he gets a lot of returned coffees because it was "cold". Just goes to show, it doesnt pay to be an advocate...literally. This place was empty while the other place was serving plenty of bad coffee and full of patrons. PLUS, this guy was selling his coffee cheaper than the cafe! Demographics does play a part and the mindset of your customers...you give what the customers want.

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          • #20
            Re: The worst coffee of my life. A coffee snob is born.

            I am stuck in my office in a shopping centre all day. A good cup of coffee is the one I can get! We have a Gloria Jeans and a Coffee Club here.

            Im thinking of asking my staff to chip in and buy a decent machine for the office. Do any of those "buy our coffee and have the machine for free" places sell decent coffee?

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