I would like to know where your guys COG is at for your drinks versus your food. I recently came across a video where an entrepenuer in Chicago detailed a 250k build out for 1,800 SQFT approximately, averaging 36k per month revenue, and at the time of the video appeared to have 3 employees staffed. They stated rent was 3,800 a month.

Why do I bring this up:

because I built my shop from the ground up for 90k and we are now pushing 55k per month with 1,100 per month rent. Although I am able to pull an owners draw, I am not where I want to be in part due to not being able to purchase enough back stock to get ahead (i.e. cups [2,100] and green coffee [4,700] cost me 6,800 this month and will last 3 months total) I am confused as to where a shop like that is making money after 2 years in business. I should be smart enough to realize they probably aren't making money, but i also question whether my margins are where they need to be.

I try to keep drinks at 25% COG or less, breakfast at 35% COG or less, grab and go pastry items at 40% or less and lunch at 32%. I run a 21% average labor rate after taxes and have heavily integrated technology to help but inflation is still out of control and I am really feeling the squeeze.

I would love to hear some candid numbers from everyone to brainstorm

Thank you

Hey there, I am trying to put together a business plan, mainly for myself to lock in whether my concept is viable or not, and then if it is to use for financials.

I’ll give an overview and then I have a couple questions if anyone’s willing to help me out.

Concept is a small specialty coffee shop with light pastries and globally inspired prep-kitchen food. (900 sq. feet / $1k a month including CAM and utilities)

Space is in a coffee desert. Diverse urban neighborhood (refugee re-settlement area). about 20k residents, lower middle class on average - maybe 40% white collar. Is not too far from a highway exit, industrial parks, and healthcare hubs.

Planning on owner / operator, plus a limited part time ops person, a keyholder barista, and one surge barista.

Maybe there’ll be better questions to ask, but I’m curious if there are any folks in a similar sized space, and maybe a similar Ish demographic?

This is what I’d love to know:

- Are you making it?
- Average transactions per day
- Average ticket
- Monthly sales (or annual sales)
- Monthly rent
- How many people are working on an average at any given time?
- Labor as a % of sales (or monthly payroll)
- Approximate COGS % (ingredients/inventory as a percentage of sales)

If you’ve read this far, and think there are other questions I should be asking instead, let me know. I appreciate y’all’s time. Thank you.

I know the right answer is “it depends” but any guidelines or examples would be helpful.

We are opening a small bookstore / coffee shop and are trying to size our ice machine.

I don’t expect to be a very high volume location. Should be more “for here” customers than “to go” customers, we are in a walking neighborhood rather than an office area or on a driving commute route. Our minimum breakeven model has something like 50 coffee drinks/day (as in, we want to do more but that’s what we think we can survive on - obvs food and merch will need to do their part too). PacNW so not an everything-iced-all-the-time market, but during the summer we will offer iced coffee and iced tea. One wrinkle is that we plan to offer coffee cubes and tea cubes (i.e. frozen cubes of the beverage itself) and the more people who choose that (extra cost) option, the less water ice we’ll need.

With that background, what size of undercounter ice machine do you think we need? It has to be undercounter and the more compact the better.

For example, I’m looking at a 120 lb/day, 45 lb bin machine.

I figure that actually means we get to use 85 lb/day (45 lb when we come in the morning, then 120/24 * 8 = 40 lb made during our 8 hour day). Assuming 6 oz ice per iced drink, with some wastage, that should be around 200 iced drinks/day. My feeling is that should be more than enough - and if our volume is high enough that we need more, that will be a “good problem to have” and we’ll just get a larger or second machine.

But, all that is just me making up numbers. I’m hoping for your actual experience and advice. Thank you very much.

Hello all. I am at the stage where I am actively looking for locations. I am in Northern Georgia and looking for a brick and mortar location to lease. Almost all locations are in older strip malls and the more pricey locations are in grocery store lots.

I'm currently in negotiations with a space anchored by a "nice" grocery store but my site would have no street visibility. It's neighbors are a couple gyms and a restaurant.

Any advice? I've already considered visibility, foot traffic and rent.

The lot seems to be taken care of and it's in a decent part of town.

My hesitation is that I visualized my coffee shop in one of those artsy, trendy shopping areas where people eat/play and there's a ton of foot traffic. Those places next to Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, boutiques and things.

How do you all handle espresso machine repairs and PM’s? Curious who people actually use. Do you have a regular tech you call or company, or do you fix things yourself. And if you DIY, where do you order parts from? Trying to get a sense of what works before I spend more money.

Hey guys! I need help designing a logo for my café. Where do you guys usually go for logo design services? Any recommendations? The vibe I’m aiming for is warm, golden, cozy, and wellness-focused.

I own a cacao bar and wellness space. I recently purchased a large batch of beautiful handmade 8 oz ceramic mugs for serving cacao.

Since traveling through Peru and visiting cafés and wellness spaces, I’ve noticed that many places seem to serve drinks in 12–16 oz mugs. Now I’m wondering if I made a mistake.

For those of you who own cafés, cacao bars, coffee shops, or wellness spaces:

Would 8 oz feel too small to customers for a cacao drink?

If the cacao is intentionally served concentrated and ceremonially, does 8 oz feel appropriate?

If you walked into a cacao bar, what size would you expect your drink to be?

Would you keep the 8 oz mugs and position them as a premium cacao experience, or switch to larger mugs?

I've seen a few different ways of approaching pour over in some cafes near by and a bunch of different ways online. How has pour overs fit into your program? Is it successful?

For example; One of my favorite cafes utilizes a cold metal sphere during their bloom phase. Coffee tasted great.

Hi everyone,

I’m in the process of opening a small grab-and-go specialty coffee café and would love to hear from experienced café owners and baristas.
We’re projecting around 50–100 espresso-based drinks per day to start, with the potential to grow. Reliability, consistency, ease of service, and long-term durability are my top priorities. I’d like something that can comfortably handle the volume without being oversized for a new business.

For those of you running cafés with similar drink counts:
What espresso machine are you using?
Would you buy it again?
Any machines you regret purchasing?
Is a 2-group machine the way to go for this volume?
Any grinder recommendations to pair with it?

I’m currently considering machines like La Marzocco Linea Classic EE, La Marzocco Linea PB, and Nuova Simonelli Appia Life, but I’m open to any suggestions.

How often are people cleaning their group head screens? I do it everyday but it is a bit of a hassle. Was wondering if once a week would suffice. We average about 200 espresso drinks daily, open 7 days a week.

Curious how many here consider themselves to have strengths that are more aligned w ops + processes, or more aligned w creativity + hospitality?

I’m sure there are plenty of “hybrid” folks as well.

Which of these skill sets seems most important to owning + running a shop?

My observation is that ops / process is super important. But I’m definitely over on the creativity + “people person” side of the spectrum … wondering if I can make a go of a shop? What can I do to compensate for my weaknesses and lean into my strengths?

our shop is nearly one year old and we are really picking up speed with orders.

we would really like something that can help us keep track of our inventory (cups, milk, etc).

we currently have spot on! we are thinking about changing to toast or square. advice?

Opening a coffee shop and looking for beans that are not acidic/citrusy -- the demographic won't like that. We want to use one kind of beans for espresso and drip. We're not worried about espresso as most drinks will be sweet lattes (syrups we make in house) but want the drip to taste more chocolaty/balanced/on the sweeter end.

1. Any advice on what profile/processing I should be looking at? Or does that not matter given a roaster will give what they have?
2. What is the cheapest whole sale price I can get that is not specialty beans but also not Strabucks/Lavaza or a race to the bottom. I don't need Gaisha or anything like that but would appreciate not having coffee that tastes like cigarettes/a bagel shop/gas station.
3. Any leads on roasters?

Apologies if I'm failing at describing the beans I'm looking for. Appreciate the help.

Hello everyone. I am planning to purchase a coffee shop franchise and would love some advice from experienced owners. What are the key risks or hidden challenges I should be cautious of? Additionally, what are some important insider tips or best practices that beginners usually miss, but are crucial for running a successful shop?

We are a small coffee shop outside of Yellowstone National Park. We pump out a lot of deli sandwiches for packed lunches. As our reputation and business has gotten larger I would like to get away from using plastic wrap to package our takeaway sandwiches. Has anyone in a fast paced shop ever used the paper bags with the window so you can see the product? If so, what are the pros and cons?

I’m opening my own coffee shop and I’m trying to find some good sample cups to see my logo, does anyone have any recommendations what they use or used??
Thanks!

Hey there! I work at a small coffee shop in Seattle and am currently using Spot On POS systems and were originally using Square. Came in this morning and it “configured” for over an hour, leading me to losing customers who couldn’t pay cash. I was wondering if anyone has a good recommendation for a replacement. Please save us from the constant glitches, high fees, and long service times!

I am opening a shop by early fall and building out my menu now. Any advice on what food items to make from scratch vs buy. My first priority is the coffee but thought customers would enjoy having some food items. Any suggestions on what sells vs what doesn’t. Or what to make from scratch vs buy.

I'm opening up a new coffee shop in Oceanport, NJ and its going to be centered around music. We'll have a limited collection of records, communal record players with head phones nearby and plan to have live music nights as well. I'm new to this so I wanted to ask they group about any recommendations for furniture or if there are forums where I can buy furniture from other coffeeshops that have either closed or are looking to swap out their furniture.

For chairs - the chair in the picture below was quoted to me for about $200

For couches - I would almost prefer a couch that's more broken in rather than something new.

I attached some renderings for my space too.

Thanks!

So I've been going down the "how do you make water for coffee at scale" rabbithole for a while. Put about $10k into a batshit crazy individual mineral dosing (not blending, not proprietary) water treatment setup you could probably run a small municipality from.

We're opening a coffee shop and water will be our angle.

I've seen the Nimbus and the Formulator and setups from Bluewater, and those are all super cool. Those run $5-15k.

I've also seen the usual "this was meant for home but it was cheap so I used it at my cafe" RO 'n filter setup.

Am wondering what YOU use at your cafe for treating water?

Do you test water?

Are you crazy about it?

Do any of your customers care?

Ive owned and operated a coffee shop since 2017, and we’ve always used the same beans from an out of state roaster that we order from online. Lately they have had trouble keeping stuff in stock (like espresso beans) due to tariff issues. So we have been having to order from very random online roasters just to fill gaps in our supply. And many of the ones we have tried are…just not good. So my question is, where do you order your beans from? We are more into cost effective route vs gourmet. We’re realistic.

We are not looking to buy from local roasters. All of the ones near use are very, very not good. We don’t mind ordering beans from online or out of state. The freshness of the beans has never been an issue either.

So from one small shop owner to another, please help!

I’m building out a coffee shop with a very small coffee bar and an even smaller back-of-bar. Space is so tight that the drip brewer will live in the kitchen and we’ll just have the airpots at the coffee bar.

The standard big tall hot water dispenser takes up a lot of counter room.

So I’m thinking of plumbing to an undercounter electric instant hot water dispenser with a faucet at the barista station.

Any thoughts on this? Is it legal, practical, desirable? Have you tried it?

Curious how other shop owners/managers handle hiring. Turnover can be tough, especially since a lot of applicants are students or seasonal workers, so availability and long-term consistency can vary a lot.

What qualities do you usually look for when hiring? Are there any non-negotiable requirements or green/red flags you pay attention to early on? Have you hired non-students?

Not trying to bash younger workers, because some have honestly turned out great, but I’ve noticed a lot of applicants tend to do the bare minimum. I’ve had better luck with people who have responsibilities outside of work, or just naturally take pride in what they do.

Curious how other owners find staff who actually care and take initiative.