
My coffeehouse nightmare (2005) - smacktoward
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/a_fine_whine/2005/12/bitter_brew.html
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sctb
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14235021](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14235021)

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DubiousPusher
They didn't fail because the margins are narrow or because the hours are long.
They failed because they didn't love the minutia of running a restaurant. They
aren't the kind of people built to work long hours. Some people handle long
hours like it's a breeze.

When I went to school, you could pick out the kids who were going to fail on
the first day. Not because they were stupid but because you could tell just
from talking to them that they wouldn't enjoy coding for hours on end. They
were only there in the first place because they had a mixed up idea about what
a game programmer actually does.

What's more, besides having a selectively edited vision of what a job actually
involves, we wrap it up in an identity. We ask kids, "what do you want to be
when you grow up?" So even when a lot of people are pretty sure they don't
want to do a thing anymore, guilt over quitting and fear of not achieving
their identity pushes them forward.

If we were smart, job shadowing, even for adults would be ubiquitous. Our
attitude would be, so lets see if you can even handle 8 hours of this before
we go much further. We would ask kids, "when you grow up, what could you do
for hours on end and still be happy?"

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mxuribe
In a world that might get a bunch of automation in some sectors - who because
of that disruption to some jobs might have to adopt universal basic income -
job shadowing for adults is actually a great idea! If I'm a truck driver who
had my livelihood killed off by autonomous and i want to keep on working (cuz
i have to, duh), then learning a new job this way (via job shadowing) seems a
pretty relevant, fast method.

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JoeAltmaier
Yeah, folks are always opening a bar because they like to socialize, or a
restaurant because they like to cook or eat.

You open a small business for one reason: you want to run a small business.
Its work, and the satisfaction has to be in the work you'll be doing. Which
includes payroll, purchasing, scheduling, negotiating, and on and on.

The OP had a good point: if you wouldn't open a dry cleaner, then don't open a
coffee shop either. Nor a bar, nor a restaurant. Because you don't really want
to own/run a small business. You're a romantic, and you will fail.

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sliverstorm
I'm not sure I agree with the last bit- can you be good at a business if you
have absolutely no passion or skill with the material? If all you bring to the
table is business skill, can you beat out the guy who has business skill and
is also really passionate about dry cleaning technology?

I've always been obsessed with power optimization & energy efficiency. I'm
endlessly motivated to chase it, through all the drudgery and boring crap. But
I have no interest in mixed drinks. I can't help but think I'd make a better
home efficiency contractor than bar owner.

Locally, one of our most successful new bars was founded by a career bartender
who loves the scene, the drinks, the kitsch. He & his compatriots identified &
filled a nightlife niche that few could have.

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JoeAltmaier
Maybe that's it - you need a partner. Successful restaurants often have that -
a business partner and a chef partner.

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cyberferret
When I started my software development business nearly 3 decades ago, someone
told me (paraphrased) "Beware the technician who has a skill/passion that they
love so much that they decide to leave a job they hate and do it for a
living...They are just building themselves another job that they will
eventually come to hate."

And by _technician_ I mean anyone who can do/make things with their own hands
and creative energy. It is probably very dated now, but I highly recommend
anyone thinking of starting their own business to read Robert Gerber's "The
E-myth Revisited".

In a nutshell, every business owner has to realise that they have to wear
three hats - that of Technician, Manager and Entrepreneur. All three require
energy and different skills, and it is very rare that one person will have
requisite skills in all 3 fields, so outside help, or more learning is needed.

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nipplesurvey
so did you have a face which was well framed by all 3 of the hats, did you
bring in outside help, or did the business fail?

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cyberferret
I brought in outside help (partner). Business is still ticking along nearly 3
decades later (though original partner has since left), so I guess it sort of
worked. Hardest times though, was one of us forgot to wear one of the hats for
an extended period, and just got comfortable or focused on wearing it.

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oaxacaoaxaca
Wow, congrats on your success. Very impressive. The Blaze site looks great
BTW. Would you be willing to share some of the secret sauce of running a
successful software shop for nearly 30 years?

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cyberferret
Thank you! Full disclosure, Blaze is my second software business, and has been
going for 22 years now. My previous one ran for about 8 years.

In short, it is really about providing great customer service. I am lucky
enough to work in a small town where word of mouth referrals are critical, and
doing a good job and genuinely caring about your customers gets you noticed
and gets people to stick to you loyally.

Plus I have a genuine love of learning about how other businesses operate, and
get a kick out of improving how they can run using my software.

But as I get older, I find that my energy levels aren't suited to one on one
development and constant support, hence my second all cloud based SaaS startup
in my sig - really it is phase 2 while I scale back my personalised face to
face customer support and explore a more distributed way of doing things on a
global scale, rather than local.

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oaxacaoaxaca
Thank you for your reply. Much appreciated.

I'm just getting started on this path, and I'm really starting to see that
like you said, excellent customer service--not beautiful code or elegantly
applied computer science principles, etc.--is the most important thing.

Now I just need to figure out how to establish that network and reputation.
Thanks again!

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larrydag
I've worked for a large national food service retailer. I tell people all the
time DO NOT start a restaurant. Margins are super low, hours are lousy and
there is so much competition.

If you want some suggestions on how to do it right

\- Find a niche and be the absolute best in it

\- Make sure your food costs are low and easily sourced

\- All of your labor should be family (pay no wages)

\- Alcohol has the best margins

Even if you do all of those things its no guarantee for success. It's very
difficult to be successful in food service.

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amelius
> I tell people all the time DO NOT start a restaurant. Margins are super low,
> (...)

Yes they are. Enter food-ordering apps that are a middle-man between
restaurant and customer. Now the margins are even lower. And there's no way
out, as these apps become the de facto portal for these customers. The misery
of the Uber-concept is not restricted to transportation.

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PopsiclePete
>Enter food-ordering apps that are a middle-man between restaurant and
customer.

Wait, why are those bad? How is a "waiter" as a middle-man between my mouth
and the restaurant better? If you're a restaurant owner, aren't these apps
(pun not intended) better for you? You could just have a bunch of delivery
people and fire all your wait staff? I'm missing something here, what am I
missing?

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jdmichal
I spoke with a local restaurant owner when she started hosting Uber Eats.
Apparently, Uber takes a cut, but they're not permitted to mark up prices to
accommodate that. So it's great for volume, but terrible for margins,
especially when the restaurant industry is not exactly known for high margins
in the first place.

The Uber Eats site is very vague about all this:

"How much does it cost?

We collect a service fee, which is calculated as a percentage of your sales on
Uber Eats. Have more questions? Fill out the interest form and a Uber Eats
team member will be happy to answer them for you."

[https://about.ubereats.com/en/restaurants/faq/](https://about.ubereats.com/en/restaurants/faq/)

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amelius
It's not really about the cut they take, but more about the fact that they
take over the sales channel, and from there take a bigger cut and eventually
drive your margins to zero.

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Xcelerate
I've always wanted to design and open my own coffee shop, particularly since I
enjoy sitting at them for hours on end. However, I'm not so naive as to think
I could make such a whim profitable without a massive amount of hard work — an
amount that would probably end up destroying the romanticism associated with
opening a coffee shop in the first place.

My plan is to instead wait until I hit the tech startup lottery and then just
operate my dream coffee shop at a loss.

All jokes aside, I'm amazed at the number of cute little places opening up
where I currently live (Knoxville, TN). When I moved here five years ago,
there were maybe one or two independent coffee shops. Now there's about ten of
them, and all of them seem to be doing quite well. I suppose there's enough
college students around here to keep them profitable though. Not to mention
the low cost of living means rent probably isn't too bad.

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jancsika
> The psychological gap between working in a cafe because it’s fun and
> romantic and doing the exact same thing because you have to is enormous.

The implication is that a day of "fun and romantic" work has as much value to
the business as a day of "paying the bills" work.

In reality, "fun and romantic" work probably meant a) receiving the pastries
from the zany French pastry chef, b) eyeballing the staff to make sure nothing
is on fire, and c) doing little else to keep the business afloat.

I say that because the author mentions feeling "vaguely dirty" about having
less than a 50% margin on a croissant with cheese. But the whole job of the
"fun and romantic" owner is to get that margin as high as possible by saving
on costs, _figuring out what the patrons want_ , and then figuring out what
they're willing to pay.

TBH, "fun and romantic" is thinking you can figure out the business side of an
NYC coffee shop by the seat of your pants. Running a coffee shop by ignoring
the business side altogether needs a different descriptor than "fun and
romantic."

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stordoff
Interesting article, though it did seem a little odd to discuss the costs of
business then describe coffee sales as "a rogue’s playground of jaw-dropping
markups". When I go to a coffee shop, I know I'm not just paying for a cup of
coffee, but for a cup of coffee to be available and prepared in that location,
plus some amount of profits. The fact that the cost of goods is a tiny
fraction of the sale cost isn't at all surprising IMO.

~~~
cyberferret
I am not a coffee drinker, and don't frequent cafes all that much, and I must
admit to being staggered at the markups in the coffee business - for basically
something that you will quite literally pee out later in the day.

In fact, I think the last time I was at a cafe, was a business meeting where I
was talking to a potential investor in an app I wrote. I clearly remember him
telling me "Gosh, NO ONE wants to pay $2 for an app (that I had sunk several
hundred hours programming into) these days...." while _literally_ holding a $5
latte in his hand, and signalling the waiter for another.

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ufmace
It's strange and quite arguably hypocritical, but still correct. Millions of
people pay markups for coffee and booze that are completely absurd every day.
Very few people will pay a dollar or two for a app, even a well-made app that
does something useful and saves them a pretty significant amount of time.
There's a reason why so many are moving to ad-based or freemium revenue models
in their apps.

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DigitalJack
You get exactly what you expect and want from the cup of coffee. Apps, not so
much.

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cyberferret
_Do_ you though? What do you do when you get a take out cup that is too bitter
or over/under sweetened? Do you wear it, or take it back?

What happens when you get caught up talking to someone or distracted, and your
$4 cup of coffee becomes cold and undrinkable? Or if someone nudges you and
you spill some? Does the $ value ever factor into it, or is it just a
'throwaway' cost?

In fact, does anyone ever stand at a urinal and think to themselves - "That is
a $10 pee, given the coffees I bought this morning"?

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Cheyana
A very enlightening and interesting article. I always wondered how difficult
it would be to open up a successful eatery in a big city. Now I know it's
nearly impossible. Kudos to the people that pull it off.

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partycoder
Another variation of clickbait titles.

"And then it ruined/destroyed my life/career"

2 years ago it was

\- "And you will not believe what happened next"

\- "<certain speciality/authority> hate them"

