It took only four months to turn the cafe around. These seven rules are for you.

Follow the caf é (Wechat official account vdailycom) and found that Beautiful Cafe opened a small shop of its own.

A Yale graduate with a degree in business, he bought a small, lossmaking restaurant in 2002.

Miraculously, it took him only four months to turn it around. He has been running a cafe for more than 13 years since he had zero experience. Now, he is known as America's favorite "coffee mentor".

In practice, he summed up seven criteria for independent cafes, which are extremely practical, and can be used as a reference for other forms of catering industry.

1. Reserve the way back.

Running a restaurant is bound to face the risk of failure.

If the business is still not smooth for a year, you should be ready to close the business at any time and sell all the kitchen equipment.

Most kitchen equipment can only be leased for a period of one year at the beginning. After a year, it is never too late to buy after the business is on track, so the cash flow will be more stable.

As there are not a small number of people who have failed in the catering industry, there are many second-hand goods in circulation in the market, and cheap equipment can be purchased through auctions and other channels.

2. Open the store next to Starbucks

It's not easy to be lucky to find a great location, but I suggest opening a store next to Starbucks.

They must have put a lot of effort into market research, and regional cafes like ours will not compete with them for business.

There is no need to find an empty storefront. Instead, I suggest finding a storefront that is not regularly cleaned and maintained (indicating that the shopkeeper does not have the drive to do business) and buy it.

It would be better if the store was originally a restaurant, which would save a lot of investment in kitchen equipment at the beginning of the store.

3. Find 200 fixed customers

For a regional cafe, as long as it has 200 regular guests, it can operate smoothly.

As early as the stage of site search, you should grasp the local characteristics and think about the unique concept of "Niche".

However, you can't be too persistent. After opening a store, you must listen to the voice of the customer and slowly correct the direction.

From the way of greeting to the design of napkins and other details, should be integrated into the concept.

Of course, if the characteristics of the shop owner do not conform to the owner's own personality, it will be difficult to succeed.

4. Design the route for consumers

The customers who bring the most revenue to the coffee shop are the take-out customers.

For them, please put sugar and cream near the door of the store.

The line can be designed to line up along the bar or shelf, rather than at a right angle facing the cashier, so that guests can see the menu while waiting, and try to avoid letting guests come to the cashier to think about what they want.

Put the small merchandise on the way of the line, so that guests can take the goods directly to the cashier to check out.

This can not only lighten the cashier's burden, but also arouse customers' willingness to buy small items more easily.

5. The movement of the operator is within 2 steps.

For every step the clerk moves, the supply of goods slows down.

When designing the kitchen, please set the coffee maker within 2 steps from the barista so that the barista can make drinks within 2 steps.

In particular, popular goods, we must pay attention to arrange the location of materials, so that it can be made in the shortest possible time.

Assuming that the popular product is latte or cappuccino, put the milk where you can get it as soon as you open the refrigerator, and the sink for cleaning the milk cup should not be too far from the coffee maker.

Please know which popular product will be before you design the kitchen.

6. Continuously optimize the menu according to sales volume

Please remember to make some changes often.

If you stop changing, the popularity of the store will begin to decline.

However, change is different from "increase". If you keep "increasing", the shop is likely to one day become a coffee shop with pizza and oil change.

When adding new items to the menu, be sure to replace the less marketable ones.

Customer preferences will change over time, as long as you can repeatedly add and delete items, the menu in the store will be able to adapt to the changes of the times.

7. Sell dishes with a small variety and a large quantity

For example, it takes an hour to make brownies from a baking pan, but if the portion is doubled, it will take only 1 hour and 10 minutes to bake.

In other words, do not increase the variety of goods, but to create a "can sell more goods at a time" business model, you can efficiently expand the scale of business.

One of my most recommended methods is the chowder service.

A large number of goods sold in coffee shops are also produced and sent to the places designated by customers, which can reduce the overall cost.