I have such a tacky dream of opening a cafe.

For professional baristas, please follow the coffee workshop (Wechat official account cafe_style)

As soon as he is idle during the holiday, Gao Xiaosong's sentence "life is not only the immediate rest, but also poetry and distant fields" will once again poke at the young and middle-aged people who are about to be driven crazy by house prices and work, and their dreams, which are usually covered up by busyness, begin to shine again.

For example, open a coffee shop.

one

The "tacky" dream of opening a coffee shop

"I had a musical dream when I was a child. I quit my job and opened a cafe, changed the world, started a business, and dropped everything to travel."

I was shot half of every sentence about the "four modern vulgarities" on the Internet.

The dream of music stayed forever when I was a child. I traveled frequently but didn't let go of everything. I was starting a business but it was still a long way from changing the world. I quit my job but didn't open a cafe.

Oh, to be clear, I didn't really want to open a cafe, but my ideal of college life had something to do with coffee-"when I earn enough money, I'll open a small bookstore where I can sit quietly by the window and drink coffee and spend the afternoon leisurely, and then it's best to have a predestined encounter, just like in many movies, idol dramas and MV."

This may be what ▲ imagined.

Opening a bookstore is similar to opening a coffee shop, but "opening a coffee shop" is too different from "sitting in a coffee shop". What do you call it:

You are not the one who sits at the window and writes "memory is an endless road". You are the one who frowns behind the bar and calculates how to save more in raw materials next time.

You are not the one talking about "Midnight Paris" romanticism with your best friends. You are the one who communicates with baristas and shop assistants about quality control and service rules at night.

You are not the one who envies others in Po food photos. You are the one who can make jokes and fix pictures by acting cute and making jokes.

……

▲, however, the daily routine of work.

Say to yourself a hundred times a day, "the hustle and bustle belongs to others. I have nothing."

two

These conditions that support the dream

Do you have it?

Is it true that there is a popular saying in the coffee industry: "Ten stores, six losses, three losses, three equals and one profit"?

It probably is.

According to the relevant data, the number of cafes in China exceeded 100000 in 2016. But the net closure rate for the whole year is as high as 13.5%. (portal: how many cafes are there in China? What is their living condition? Let's take a look at this data report of "Ka Men")

More importantly, there are several dimensions to think about, for you to think about whether you are ready to open a cafe or not.

▲ preparation is not just about baking beans and making coffee.

one

Industry knowledge

Maybe you used to be a barista, know beans well, know flavor wheels, and know how coffee beans should be made in different producing areas, which is helpful to the operation of a cafe.

But this is not the industry knowledge needed to open a coffee shop as we are talking about at the moment.

What you need to focus on is:

The core competitiveness of well-known coffee brands at home and abroad?

What is the change in the focus of coffee shop management in the past year?

What innovative business / profit models are emerging?

What are the key links in the upstream chain?

To what stage did equipment and technology evolve?

What is the current state of the market, especially the local market?

……

Compared to being able to judge the quality of a cup of coffee, understand the above, combined with your existing resources and the appearance of the cafe in your heart, you can form a basic positioning of a storefront, and there is a direction for subsequent efforts.

two

Family background estimate

How much money a cafe needs is up to people (portal: shop diary | listen to her calculate such an account before starting a small cafe).

What you need to know is that the cost includes but is not limited to: finding a shop to pay rent, design and decoration construction, table and chair furniture procurement, equipment, tools and containers procurement, document processing, personnel employment training, raw material ingredients procurement, necessary publicity.

▲ is careful everywhere, and may not be able to stop the rising costs

Make a realistic estimate of your money: does your family's current financial situation support you in running a business that is at risk of losing money?

Even if you are not afraid to "build the earth with the sky", there is no reason to let your family suffer with you.

Coffee shop investment, as far as possible without affecting the quality of life of the family, at least set aside enough to earn the next share of the cost of living-it sounds cruel, but it makes sense.

The investment community always uses a vivid example called "Don't put eggs in the same basket."

Without full assurance or even estimation of the full cost, ALL IN is not rational, it is easy to put yourself in a dilemma, and it is easy to lose control and judgment on the overall situation in the operation.

three

Individual ability

To open a cafe, even if you can miraculously go to Starbucks and hire a manager, a barista from the blue bottle and a waiter from Haidilao, at the very least, during the first half to 10 months, the "key gentleman" of the cafe is still you--

▲, at this time, you have to be a soldier in front of you everywhere.

When a barista makes a cup of coffee, you need to understand the proportion of wear and tear to the total consumption of raw materials; the manager counts the inventory, and you need to figure out the purchase cycle and purchase volume according to the flow; the waiter cleans up a counter, and you need to know the turnover rate and customer unit price for the whole day.

In the corresponding position, they are more professional than you, and you do not have to and should not do everything yourself, but the full-time position with the ability to manage cannot help you make up for it.

In addition, leadership is also critical. How to lead a team to work together effectively takes time, but at least, you shouldn't just be "iron blood" or "old man" in the early stage.

In addition, some additional "value-added capabilities" are needed.

Online marketing skills:

These days there is no exclusive brand Wechat Weibo, it is simply embarrassing to open a coffee shop.

In the case that there is no special person in charge in the early stage, he can at least carry out daily operation and maintenance. If you have the spare power to spread out in multiple channels, and then plan some ingenious online activities, you will be the little expert to save popularity!

Copywriting & Design & Photography & hand painting:

Solving many problems such as store name, publicity, menu, poster and so on at once shows how important it is to have multi-skill. Er, a word of warning, if the effect is too advanced, everyone says it doesn't look good, please don't be too capricious.

You like ▲ will add a lot of color to your store.

Activity organization & social skills:

In the continuous operation of most cafes, repeat customers are a major consumer group, and emotional connection with the cafe is very important; at the same time, fresh activities will also bring new consumers. Chat together, cafes sometimes assume the role of the city living room.

Of course, there are baking, music, flower arrangement, planting and so on. In short, please grow up the skill tree!

Well, after reading these, do you think the people who bravely open cafes are awesome? Do you still have your dream of opening a coffee shop?