I finally figured out how to add pictures (I'm afraid I'm showing my age!!!) Check my page to see.

Jon, sorry for the delay. Busy week! Yea!! When doing my business plan 3 years ago, we found statistics that adjusted to our area, we could expect 200 - 225 customers a day. I average about 110 - 125 tickets a day which translates to probably 150 - 175 customers. Our average ticket is about $5.75 - $6. We serve pastries, muffins, sandwiches,desserts, etc. I feel that it's a necessity for us to offer these. It's what keeps customers coming in all day long.
Unfortunately, we are NOT in the black yet. Maybe we would have been close to it if the economy hadn't gone south, but I really don't expect to be there until closer to the 5 year mark. I will say, even though I still feel it's the best thing I could do, it has been way more stressful than I could of imagined. I see it slightly picking up now, but it has a long ways to go before I can breath a little easier.
One thing that has really helped it through these first years is that we have provided a music venue that was not offered anywhere else. We invite local bands mostly to play on Friday and Saturday nights. They are paid by tips and a percentage of the sales while they're playing. This encourages them to invite their friends and promote themselves.
I think the only other question I haven't answered is the annual sales. I will estimate it at about $175,000 to $200,000.
Your other email asked about equipment left at my location. It was a walk in cooler that was really handy, until it went out last year and I found out that the repair was going to be $1500 +. I've yet to get it fixed. We use our other refrigerators instead.

We were delayed a few months on our opening; originally slated to open when school started last fall. We didn't open until the second week of November, which impacted the momentum of our "customer grab". Just as we got up to speed it, both with baristas and customers, school shut down for Thanksgiving and then two weeks later shut down for Winter break. We are performing a little below our expectation, but there are so many variables that may be effecting the numbers.

The demographics of the town are interesting...We are located across the street from a private Baptist University with a student population of around 5K. The city/county itself has about 300K people with only 97K of those living within the city limits. Much of the population tends to reside outside the actual city limits, commute into the city to work and school, which skews the numbers on median household income in the area and other key numbers that help you determine the viability of a location.

We captured the students immediately and have begun to reach out to the non-student population through newspaper articles, food reviews, and a morning catering offering for businesses. We did some fun stuff through finals last semester if you're looking for ideas there too.

I would be glad to swap ideas with you. Right now it seems I have more questions than answers, as I am sure you can understand.

Hey Jon,
Our Web site is www.latteyourway.com. It is pretty basic as we put it up just before we opened and have not touched it since. Just do not have the time right now. We are located in a very small town, Linden Michigan. It is southwest of Flint -yep - the very same Flint the Michael Moore made not so famous. If you go to my page on the exchange there is a photo of the inside. - dd

My shop is a stand alone building. It was a BBQ place before me. It sat vacant for 6 years. Already had a drive thru (which I would HIGHLY suggest!) and it's about 2000 sq. ft. I went through a local bank. The SBA has a lot of hoops to jump through. For instance, if the land was EVER used as a gas station, you have to have their EPA out to take samples which can take months to complete. You also have to put up a large percentage of cash yourself and they match funds. This was all told to me by my loan officer. There was something else, but I can't remember exactly what it was. Anyway, we decided it didn't look as good as we thought. We put up some collateral of our own and then our equipment covered the rest of the loan. So basically, the bank owns my business ;-) ! My equipment costs were about $60,000, and I even had some of it left from the previous business.

What great questions! I wish I would have asked someone about payroll before I did my business plan! I have 6 employees at this time; 1 full time (40 hrs.), 2 almost full time (25 - 35 hrs.) and 3 part time (15 - 20 hrs.). I take AT LEAST 42 - 45 hours a week behind the bar. My payroll is around $1,500 every 2 weeks. Payroll taxes are a lot. Off hand it's about 15%. I almost never have more that 2 on the clock at a time, some evenings I only have 1. The only time I have to have more is when we have live bands, then I try to be the 3rd. Hope this helps. Looking forward to talking with you.

Hi, I'd like to start an email chain for us that are in the process of opening a coffee shop/cafe. Are you interested? If so, send me you email and I will include it. I figure we can ask each other the questions we have, I'm sure we all have different experiences and knowledge that we can learn from each.

Mark

Keep up the research. I read that you attended ABC school - They're great. It seems that you're getting all your ducks in a row! I'll pass on the good word to Erin. Thanks