[shop opening experience] how do professional engineers run a small cafe?

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This is an interesting article written by Sriram Devadas, an engineer at Vistaprint. It is lively and interesting, and the explanation is easy to understand.

I run a cafe. The operating cost is proportional to the resources used.

My cafe is about 100 square feet (about nine square meters) and employs a barista and a coffee machine.

Business capacity

If you can serve one customer at a time, it takes three minutes to make a cup of coffee, so the total time to serve a customer is five minutes.

If my barista works non-stop and there is nothing wrong with the German coffee machine I use, then my cafe has a reception capacity of 12 customers per hour.

Web server

There are many customers during the rush hour, but we can only serve one customer at a time, and there is no waiting area.

So I upgraded the store, and the new store is great!

Configuration after upgrade

The same store area employs three baristas, buys two coffee machines and adds two chairs.

Business capacity

You can make two cups of coffee in three minutes, Concurrent three customers at the same time in about seven minutes, and two more customers can wait in line on the new chairs.

The number of customers of concurrent service is 3 and the number of customer reception is 5.

Vertical expansion

The new store is very popular and there is a steady stream of customers, so I upgraded the store again, and the new store is bigger! The facilities are better!

Configuration after upgrade

The 200-foot storefront, five baristas, four coffee machines, three chairs.

Business capacity increases with the increase in investment, and everything seems to be fine.

However, with the arrival of summer, it is also the off-season for cafes. At this time, due to the pressure of operating costs, I want to reduce the configuration of the store. But my boss won't let me do it.

Due to the ups and downs of the business, vertical expansion is a bit too expensive for me and my cafe. Sometimes bigger doesn't mean better.

Scale horizontally through traffic load balancing

After discussion, the boss agreed to adjust the allocation of cafe resources in a group of three baristas. If I had informed him in advance, he could increase or decrease such a group of resources.

If I could manage multiple resource groups with the same configuration...

Yes, there happens to be such a special bar! This kind of bar allows a barista to serve multiple customers at the same time. In fact, the person who serves the customer does not have to be a barista. The customer only needs someone to place an order for them. And baristas do not need to deal directly with these difficult customers.

So I made improvements. If I have a need to expand my business, I will hire three additional baristas (the boss says OK) and put them in some special bar. If the business volume drops, I will terminate the employment contract and let the three baristas withdraw from the bar.

With the increase of investment, the reception capacity of the storefront becomes stronger, and the business capacity can be adjusted dynamically.

Resource-intensive processing

I find my coffee machine is very versatile and can make all kinds of food. Many customers suggested that I should add toast to the menu, and I did so.

There was a problem: the two coffee machines I used took twice as long to make coffee to bake a pound of bread.

In this way, it takes as long as it takes to make four cups of coffee to bake a pound of bread.

As a result, bread orders sometimes block the entire system! The customers who ordered coffee were very dissatisfied, and everyone was talking about my inefficient way of doing business.

I need a way to divert orders according to business load so that my resources can be used optimally.

Asynchronous queue based on processing

I invented a queuing system using number plates.

When the customer arrives, he will get a number plate and wait after ordering. Orders are divided into two input queues, bread and coffee. Baristas choose whether to respond to coffee orders or bread orders according to the current two queues and the status of store resources.

Once the coffee or bread is ready, it will be placed in an output tray, and the waiter will call the number and the customer will take it away.

Although input queues and output pallets are newly added, these resources are still used, only that the mode of service is different. The calculation of input and service capacity is very complex, so the complexity of the whole system increases. So if there is a problem during this period, it will be a headache to deal with and solve it.

If customers can accept this asynchronous service, and we can control such a complex system, then my coffee shop can expand according to the volume of business and provide a variety of services at the same time. This is enough to scare off competitors.

Write at the end

The basic problem of cafe operation, process management. Of course, different brand positioning, different location and spatial layout lead to different process management. But the purpose of all processes is to allocate resources reasonably and maximize profits.

So here are some suggestions for friends who want to open cafes and bars for reference:

1. First of all, you have to understand that making coffee and mixing wine is a technical task. if you don't know how coffee is made, find someone who knows how to make coffee to learn the principle of coffee brewing and make up the relevant knowledge. Of course, I have also met friends who want to open a shop after studying abroad for a long time, arrogantly saying, "I drink a lot of coffee, I know, I drink every day, and I only drink illy, which is a national treasure of Italy, and I only drink 100% Arabica beans." want to enter the coffee business, it is good to drink too much coffee, but you open a shop, you fight for business, as the boss should have certain professional knowledge. If you don't know how to drink, you can open this shop. Do you know anything about coffee? Do you know anything about catering? If you don't understand, get ready to bleed all over the floor. It's inconvenient to say more about the truth. So to open a shop, I suggest you find someone who knows how to operate it.

2. Have you made a budget for opening a store? This is a top priority. I've seen a lot of people who don't even have a budget to open a store. If they have 300000, they invest 300000. As a result, they don't even know where the money is spent. One of the big reasons why so many cafes and bars, including any related stores, will close down is that they have not made a budget. I have also met more ruthless shopkeepers, who have money and do not pay any attention to the budget at all. Find a design company to design a store of more than 100 square meters like a hotel lobby, using Italian sofas, top machines, all kinds of luxuries and all kinds of comforts. It's a good idea to find a cake maker in a five-star hotel to make his own cake. Only to find that the monthly income is far from enough for expenses. In the end, I was drowned in the laughter of "I'm going to open a small shop".

With regard to the funds for opening a store, there must be a certain amount of liquidity. After all, what you need to cultivate when opening a store, there is a period of cultivation, which may take half a year, a year, or three months. This liquidity is your guarantee. Don't find out that all the money will be spent on opening stores and buying equipment. Next month's rent hasn't been settled yet. I'd like to see how many walls I can tear down.

3. Do you have a strong tolerance in your heart? As mentioned above, opening a store requires a stage of cultivation, which requires not only funds to support, but also patience. This gap period is tortuous. Coffee or bar, unless you are located in a place with a high flow of people, or rely on regular customers to support, in the store just opened time, your regular customer volume is not big enough, monthly expenses deficit. Employees are also in a trance and do nothing, which eventually leads to staff loss. Then you can only eat cake, drink coffee, read books, pretend to be literary style, and sigh how wonderful your life was in the past. Therefore, now that you have opened a shop, you must have enough patience to train him and perfect him.

5. You can't just sit back and wait for death! How to face the training period? Some people choose to adapt to reality and start to use cheap raw materials and fire employees who feel redundant. Layoffs are indeed a good way to control costs. But you have to consider this method in the light of reality. OK, you can't just sit back and wait! We have to move! To do business, we must not wait for customers to come in, but take the initiative to attack. OK, let's do an activity, 50% discount on coffee, 30% discount on drinks, 20% discount on pizzas and sandwiches, then prepare a 10 yuan voucher, insert one into a customer, and send a 20% discount membership card when you check out. So the customer will come again next time! What a wonderful idea. Obviously, you have worked hard to do a good job in your store. But it's of no use! Now there are discounts everywhere on the street, vouchers everywhere, and everyone has a lot of membership cards. Does such an activity make sense?

So experience tells me that I should do this:

(1) at the time of your opening, you should prepare all the publicity strategies, create a hot scene and start a free product tasting. Such activities can be to entertain their own friends, so entertain friends and make a popularity, the more sensational the opening, the better, not afraid of vulgarity, afraid of the cold!

(2) since your odd number is small, why do you want a discount? Isn't this even more about lowering your own unit price? What we need to do is to pick up the unit price and implement the strategy of killing one by one. To make a set meal, steak, salad, soup, coffee and dessert are listed at a price of 68 and 98, depending on your cost. The set meal must be super affordable, so that customers feel that they can regret it for three days without ordering the set meal. Since the guest came to your store today, it shows that he has already prepared to spend a certain amount of money, so take out his money with the most tempting thing.

(3) the waiter is the key point! Business is bad, even if you lay off your wife, you can't let an excellent waiter leave. They are at the forefront of the battle. "Sir, did you order a cup of cabbage? Then you can take a look at our new afternoon tea set menu, which can be paired with a cheesecake with the Cabo you want, and the price is only 10 yuan more than your single order. "if it were me, I would never stand a sweet-looking girl." the girl with a gentle voice recommended it to me for 10 yuan. !

After eating the cake and coffee, the waiter will take the initiative to empty the plate and smile again. "would you like to order another ice cream, sir?" Our ice cream is imported from Italy, 25 yuan for three balls, you can also taste it with this beautiful sister "and hang a charming smile again." Grandma, 25, can also taste together, today is to go on a blind date, just to pick up this topic to tease. Buy! Look how important it is to be a lovely and excellent employee.

(4) since he is already losing money, why not make his loss more meaningful? I feel that it is a tragedy to open a shop every day. Now that it's already tragic, do you care about more tragedies? Why not get to the bottom of it. Grandma's! Today, the whole beer is worth 1 yuan a bottle. Free tasting of new coffee! Buy a set meal for Porsche! Since it's an activity, let him give it a boost. To open a shop is to play. If you find a way to have fun, the customers will have a good time. All activities should be customer-based, and if you don't think it's worth it, who will come? Will you drink beer for 1 yuan? I will!

Summary:

All right, I've said too much. I feel like I'm talking nonsense. Since you want to open a shop, you have to ask yourself, do you understand? does anyone around you understand? How many resources do you have to use? If you don't have any resources around you, you just want to open it, spend some money to learn experience, don't care that a good store manager asks you for 5000 salary, because a really good store manager can definitely save you more than 5000.