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Permalink Reply by Aaron Duckworth on February 23, 2010 at 9:04am

I have been researching these in the Kansas City area as my own church is putting one in as part of a larger expansion. There are several around and many of them run multiple days a week. Typically, I am finding that because their hours of operation are longer and they lack the earning power from just a coffee menu, they are having to resort to sandwiches, chips, candy, etc. to make up for their overhead. Our strategy is to be open on Sunday of course, but then 2 nights per week when we already have existing groups already meeting in the church. We will add more times to be open as demand mandates. This is not expected to be a major revenue stream, but it is being set up to be profitable. I wrote a bit about how we will be operating on my blog a couple of months back. As to the question of being a non-profit, there's no issue with adding to your volume from an already existing set up.

However, the best one here in town does a crazy business is at http://www.cor.org/ and they do more volume than most of the actual cafes around here. Quality is great (unusual in churchworld), service is great and their space is great. I'll be revisiting them soon.

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Permalink Reply by Owen O'Neill on February 23, 2010 at 12:09pm

Check with Chris DeFerio at The Coffee Institute in Muncie Indiana. I suspect he'll be a wealth of information ro at the least can point you to some.

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Permalink Reply by Aaron Duckworth on February 23, 2010 at 12:31pm

Absolutely. Owen beat me to it. Especially since he's kind of in your neck of the woods Miles. Chris is a good egg and is always willing to help.

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Permalink Reply by MilesT on February 23, 2010 at 1:22pm

Some great info here. I've spoken to Lance Thomas @ United Meth in KC and Terry Hull at Union Road in NC. Both had interesting things to say about this. Union Road runs their cafe as in independent business w/in the church, with their own separate balance sheet, but since all proceeds go to the church they run it as a non profit. Cool. Each avoid "traditional marketing" techniques but do network quite a bit, word of mouth, loyalty programs etc., and both run financially successful cafes. They also said the value added to their communities was by far the most interesting aspect of the cafes ... watching the community take part in service programs, build relationships and find their place in faith. Sounds like an ideal model for all cafes.

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Permalink Reply by Kimmy on February 23, 2010 at 4:01pm

Cartwheels and Coffee in Richmond,Virginia

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