Menu Planning

If you are planning a particularly small operation, or have very limited capital, then you may not have the option of providing any type of food service. But, increasingly, owners of gourmet coffee shop businesses are finding it difficult to ignore a rising consumer demand for a special menu to go along with the beverages they sell. Many coffee shop businesses treat their menus as afterthoughts. This is a big mistake. You should base your menu on the personality of your customer base and a practical assessment of your resources.

Case in point — A retired psychologist from Connecticut knew that he and his wife wanted to move to Colorado, and the two of them spent 10 weeks traveling around the state looking at prospective cities in which to open a coffee shop business. They had narrowed their list down to eight towns when they hired us to spend a week with them to assist in their decision making process.

Before we set off to join them, we talked quite a bit by phone and they told us that they only wanted to do coffee and some pastries. They made it clear they absolutely did not want to get involved in a food service operation.

So we went looking at various locations, with that in mind, but, in every town we went to, we kept hearing the same message from coffee shop business owners:

We were planning on only coffee and pastries, but we have since decided that we also had to serve some light lunches.

By the end of the week, our clients said to us:

You know, we keep hearing the same thing over and over---so we think we ought to incorporate some light food into our operation also.

More and more food product companies are expanding the variety of products specifically crafted for gourmet coffee drinkers. Both retailers and suppliers are responding to the booming specialty coffee market.

Besides the fact that serving food will create satisfied customers, you always want to take into account that you are paying rent on your space 24 hours a day. You want to try to generate sales during as many hours of the day as possible.

If you are only serving coffee and pastries, then basically what you have is a morning operation. If you add some light food and some additional beverage options, you can fill those dead or slow times in which you are already paying rent, without having to make a big investment in equipment or significantly increasing you labor costs. Bellissmo's video Everything But Coffee will help you learn the essentials that enhance coffee shop profitability.

Since you are already paying rent and hiring people to be on hand to serve your customers, you can find ways to produce additional income with the same amount of bottom-line expenses. When you can increase your sales without increasing your bottom-line expenses, you increase your profit.