More than 6 million yuan was paid for opening a coffee shop for two years, and finally he was forced to sell box lunches.

How hard is it to open a coffee shop?

Ah Jian, who is called a "business genius" by his friends, has done well in the fast consumer, building materials, home and entertainment industries, but he has lost more than NT $6 million in the cafe for two years.

From the small details of the bathroom to the operation and management, "they are all stepping on the hole, almost not doing one thing right". Let's take a look at the lessons to be learned.

One:

Gao Lige operated, but lost to the decoration details.

Before opening a restaurant, A Jian mainly focused on opening KTV, and five or six stores were doing brisk business. Because he always wanted to open a coffee shop, he found a catering management company that specializes in western coffee to prepare it.

The cafe has a total of more than 1000 square meters and is positioned as a curry restaurant. In addition to coffee, it also sells light food and simple western food.

In order to reduce the cost pressure and improve the efficiency of the turf, another 6 boxes were made outside the hall. In the box, you can eat and drink coffee, and you can also have meetings and play PPT. At the same time, an entertainment system is added to allow you to watch movies and sing songs.

Coffee and light snacks are made during the day, and the hall is transformed into a bar at night, with band performances and drinks, open until 2 o'clock in the morning.

The integration of multiple formats meets the needs of potential consumers. As soon as the restaurant opens, it is very popular, and many customers apply for stored value cards after spending for the first time.

▲ can meet a variety of needs, and the initial business is very good.

However, in the end, such a beautiful environment was spoiled by a dirty bathroom.

When the restaurant is decorated, in order to cooperate with the creation of the atmosphere, the bathroom floor uses a cement self-leveling material. Once this kind of ground is stained with water, it will look dirty and it will take a lot of water to clean.

Ah Jian said that it is not a coincidence that after the toilet problems were exposed, the membership of the stored value card gradually decreased, and the members who consumed the amount in the card were also unwilling to recharge, so it was useless to increase the intensity of stored value gifts.

Coffee comment

The cleanliness of the toilet is a microcosm of hygiene. Consumers in cafes are obviously concerned about environmental hygiene.

In addition to the sense of beauty, decoration should also give consideration to practicality, and the decoration materials of public areas should be easy to clean and have strong tolerance. Flashy decoration may not only not add points, but will become a burden on catering operation.

Two:

One month after its opening, it was blocked by road construction.

The store is located on the local bar street near the main road, with different styles of cafes or bars.

This bar street is surrounded by some large office buildings and youth communities, with a steady stream of white-collar workers and bosses in office buildings during the day, and fashionable people who pay attention to the mood at night. Ah Jian is still very satisfied with the location.

But less than a month after opening, the road began to expand in front of the door, and the two-way six lanes should be changed to eight lanes.

No sooner had ▲ opened than the road was built.

After the expansion of the road, the viaduct began to be built, and there is no elevated entrance at the intersection of the restaurant, so customers on the bridge should think that the shop is very inconvenient.

Coffee comment

The construction of the road was not considered in advance, and I did not expect that it could be repaired for two years. It was the helplessness of many bosses to turn a storefront from a thriving business to an unattended one.

Such a dilemma is not completely helpless, and can be actively remedied through measures such as offline activity attraction, online live streaming, or developing takeout sales.

Let's look at a few cases:

A few months ago, a building next to Beijing's Beixinqiao subway station was renovated with not only fences, but also the outer facade of the building surrounded by brands such as KFC, Jiabu and Yang Guofu Spicy Hot Pot.

Within a few days, the three stores hung banners on the floor protection net, indicating that the store was open normally, and the same words were written on the LED screen above the enclosure. Yang Guofu also broadcast the "normal Business" broadcast on Spicy Hot Pot.

A storefront in Dalongyi in Chengdu experienced a similar situation during rental and renovation. Dalongyi launched an online live broadcast on Weibo to broadcast daily project progress and interact with fans. The offline display is not smooth, so it is drained from the line, and the consumer guidance is successfully completed.

A month after the opening of the Xiaofeng Shao tavern in Chengdu, the subway fence surrounded the door of the store, and the boss said that the business was at least 1% less than 3%. There is no way, in addition to the restaurant operation, the boss began to devote energy to takeout. But also aimed at the small beacon burning female customer group, and the local main account to do accurate matchmaking marketing, to attract target consumers.

In fact, when you encounter a municipal fence, the most important thing is brand promotion, trying to attract the attention of target groups, and maybe you can force yourself to find a new way of operation.

Three:

The location was unknown, and finally the box lunch was sold.

As mentioned above, the product plan of Ah Jian Cafe is coffee, light food and western food, but the food is not well prepared at the beginning of the opening, and the income of the restaurant mainly depends on coffee and drinks.

Considering the white-collar workers in the surrounding office buildings, in order to increase the unit price of guests, the restaurant launched a working day lunch set of about 20 yuan. But chefs come from light food, box lunches often have problems such as poor control of the softness and hardness of rice, fishy smell of meat and vegetables, and so on.

At this time, the surrounding cafes launched a "1 yuan to drink coffee" activity, fighting a price war, and coffee sales, which were originally a source of profits, were also affected.

The ▲ product line began to change rapidly.

After much deliberation, A Jian decided to close the shop and reinstall, change the team, abandon the cafe and make fusion dishes instead.

After reloading, it is the hot time for grilled fish, and the restaurant focuses on grilled fish, kebabs and craft beer. Ask the domestic first-tier barbecue brand team to guide and adjust the taste of the products. Business in the store is booming again.

But A Jian made a wrong decision at this time-grilled fish can not rinse vegetables, only served with kebabs and rice. As there are more and more grilled fish restaurants that can rinse vegetables, business is falling again.

The operation team is in a hurry to apply for medical treatment, and often engages in some ineffective and loss-making marketing. For example, the moments are full of 38 likes and can be exempted from the "bully meal". The activity has an immediate effect. The store is full of customers, but there is almost no revenue. As soon as the event is over, the business ends.

Later, I bought several thermal insulation diners to sell box lunches under various office buildings, each for only more than ten yuan, competing with other fast food vehicles for business, and the sales could not even earn back the cost, and it was cancelled in less than a month.

▲ has no positioning and focus. Try one after another.

When there is nothing to do, the crayfish boom comes. A Jian decided to take advantage of the hot category and focus on crayfish products.

The restaurant began to make chilled crayfish from Nanjing and steamed prawns from Wuhan, which are all tastes that local crayfish products do not have. But these flavors of crayfish, neither hemp nor spicy nor fragrant, are very unapproachable, and few customers come to the door.

A Jian also realized the "early twists and turns" in the products, but his previous success made him overinflated and did not have real competitiveness to follow the hot spots. Over the past two years, the restaurant has made several adjustments and lost more than 6 million yuan. A Jian's heart pined away and closed the restaurant.

Coffee comment

The confusion of product planning actually stems from the unknown location of the cafe. Without a clear positioning and a clear target customer base, we naturally do not know how to choose products that attract customers.

On a whim of new product development, transformation and reassembly, there is no positioning as the "backbone", but also looking for a needle in a haystack, it is naturally difficult for customers to come to the door.

Four:

The hidden danger of completely delegating power to the operation team

In those two years of dry catering, A Jian handed over the preparation, decoration and operation to a western-style coffee operation planning company in Beijing.

The company is far less professional than it initially showed:

1. the operation team did not give effective suggestions on the problems in the decoration of the restaurant.

2. During the product planning, the operation team also failed to control the equipment of the kitchen and the technology of the chef. More than half a month after the opening of the business, the kitchen had to add equipment and change the chef.

3. In terms of personnel training, the staff in the store can only make products, not services.

……

In the case of ▲ "outsourcing", it is difficult to form an effective team

Even when business is booming, customers have a poor sense of experience. Several friends who knew each other were singing and drinking in the box. When they were closing at 2: 00 in the morning, the waiter knocked on the door and asked, "when are you leaving?" We should get off work. "

Coffee comment

No matter the size of the store, how to recruit, educate, employ and retain people is a required course for every boss, and talent is the core of the enterprise.

Only when the team is reliable and the staff are capable, can the restaurant or enterprise have the opportunity to point to which to hit, otherwise, the boss will open the shop on his own, either tired or dragged out of the restaurant.