ottawa foodies

Slate article on:

www.slate.com

Interesting article! Thanks for posting

Very interesting.

My advice is please don't open a coffee shop. I like coffee. I drink coffee daily. I just don't want another coffee option. I don't need another coffee option. Hearing about all the new coffee shops in the neighbourhood generally just makes me sad, is there really enough people to support all this coffee?

Still, Bridgehead seems to have found a way to make it work (maybe it's the $3+ for a coffee - worth it though, once in a while, with one of their yummy date squares). I do notice a lot of people sitting with laptops in there - that can't be good for profits. :-)

bridgehead is huge! i don't think you can compare a new bridgehead opening to an independant coffee shop opening in the downtown core. any new coffee shop will be in competition to bridgehead. bridgehead has reputation, money, & brand recognition all behind it.

True, but even Bridgehead started small. I wonder if it's just a matter of riding out the lean years till you get the reputation, money, and brand going ?

Or is there some new twist on coffee that will give a competitive edge? I don't know, but perhaps all the ways that bean can be used have not been fully explored.

do most independant coffee shop owners start off wanting to expand and franchise? i agree with the article - don't open a coffe shop just because you love coffee and think you can serve it better than all the rest of the shops. instead do it for business reasons. the article also states what profits have to be made just to break even and the odds of success look incredibly difficult. the amount of coffee and pastries you have to sell just to break even, before you even pay yourself. how does a person live if they can't even pay themselves?

it just seems like one of the riskiest food options in the city. maybe the suburbs are different where the number of chains are higher and perhaps people want something a little different. maybe a coffee truck that roasts in the truck would be successful?

i am interested in the popularity of roasting beans and selling them. i know zym is doing this, plus happy goat in his neighbourhood, soon to be bridgehead a little further away (preston & somerset location). maybe the potential for success since you can sell beans to restaurants, coffee shops, individuals and you don't need a lot of overhead?

It is still possible to do it profitably. The trick is to do what we are doing and start small and build up. And by "small" I mean "pico" not "micro". We have no debt at the 6 month mark and if all goes well one of the things we'd like to consider is using the other half of our double lot to build a coffee shop. That would be way lower cost than paying commercial rents. And the article mentions the high margins on coffee - they are way higher if you roast your own. You would also have to do all your own food which would not be a big deal for us.

The roasting truck is also an idea in the forefront for us. It looks like a pretty low cost way to go. Trucks are fairly cheap on kijiji. Though no solid plans yet. But this would likely be a step on the road toward building a cafe.

There are also models like one very successful small food establishment near my house that has 1 employee (the owner) and no posted business hours. But this seems to be a large part of the charm amongst locals is that the owner is something of a character known for being a bit off the wall.

The big question is - how much is enough? Our family can live off very little income, and that's basically all we'd be looking for.

Though all that said it does concern me seeing all the coffee shops opening up around here. There is no way they can all survive especially in a recession. Good luck to them but I can't see them all making it.

zym - i think your approach is a good one. keeping things small are definite benefits. can your family live off that, or will one of you worka full time job on the side?

i also wonder how all the new independant coffee shops will do in hintonburg once bridgehead opens at fairmont.

i know the owner of raw sugar slowly put her shop together over 5 years. she also had the good fortune to find a spot in the city without coffee shop competition (except for umi which opened a year before raw sugar). raw sugar does a lot of events and has a liquor license, so i don't know what the revenue stream is - coffee vs the licensed night events.

Right now all our profits are going right back into the business so there is no money to support the family. But it is still not enough to equal an income. In 6 months time maybe - we'll see. All signs are that it certainly could be 1 income for us by that point.

if you open somewhere and serve homemade doughnuts, you'll be ahead of many places, and you'll have my business :)

though i also like the mobile option. maybe park infront of the schools during morning drop-off.

I agree HFF. If anyone can serve the kind of perfect home made yeast raised donuts you find all over Delaware/connecticut/rhode island (donut capital of the world I think), I'd drive across town for them.

In search of the reportedly perfect examples, I scoured parts of rhode island 4 times in as many days to finally find this place, well hidden on a service road in the middle of nowhere. The lot is full of cars from 7am until they run out and people do line up for up to half an hour to get them. I've had the Lansdowne versions and they are OK, but someone could make a killing if they brought authentic American donuts to Ottawa. If you build it, they will come, especially if you fill some with sweetened whipped cream and not bavarian cream :)

There is another place I went once, "butler's colonial donut house" about 2 hours north of Boston. No sign, but the guy worked out of his garage and it was in a rural area and when we finally got to the front of the line, he had perfect warm yeast raised donuts on a length of dowel, glazing them by hand with a paintbrush before stacking them in a box. His jelly donuts were also amazing, and he did a kind of creme filled long john with buttercream icing on top that was incredible.

God, I need a donut this morning.

He might be willing to sell the recipe, given that his customer base and Ottawa do not overlap. Also, do a market test to see if the product appeals locally. Ben and Jerry's in the Billing's Bridge Plaza went out of business, and Tim Horton's isn't doing that well in the US - proving that what works in one place doesn't necessarily work as well across the border.

BTW, that was not much of an article. I got to the end of it and thought "gee, that was a good intro - where's the article". The guy points out some pretty obvious things that he seems to have discovered after-the-fact. Does not seem like he put together even a basic business plan. It came across as disgruntled musings and not much more.

@zym, But I think that was his point . . . that he had no business plan. He opened it for the love of coffee shops. The other cliché, one that I've seen borne out, is not to hire relatives. Because one day you may have to fire them, and that won't go so well.

Well here's a competitive twist: coffee and . . . a cat?

www.vancouversun.com

Bridgehead started as a mail order coffee business, was re-structured in the late 90's and opened the first of the "new" coffee houses in 2000 and grew from there. Part of the allure for many people is that they espouse fair trade coffee and Eco friendly practices as a rule, period . Not because it's de rigeur. My friend has managed, and opened nearly every new Bridghead that has opened since the original store next to MEC and I think they are selling a culture, not just a cup of coffee.

What's eco friendly about giving away disposable cups?

What is your suggestion for people who fail to bring their own mugs and need to go?

I think Bridgehead tries hard to use packaging that is biodegradable and environmentally friendly. If you stay in the shop, you get real china and utensils. This is much better than many coffee shops I've been in that give you disposable cups and plates even when you stay.

My suggestion for people who fail to bring their own mug is to either stay and drink from a real mug, or go without and bring one next time.

Giving out single use containers is putting profit before the environment. Biodegradable is really just green washing.

@zym, we have bigger issues to worry about than paper cups I think :-)

Such as the end of Fall (which would be a heartbreak). www.slate.com

However another way to address the issue would be to sell the coffee in a mug, with an added deposit covering the price of the mug, refundable when the mug was returned. That way, it would also entice the customer to come back to the shop again. Everyone wins including the environment and the coffee shop solidifies it's green cred as well.

And if the person doesn't return? Well I wouldn't sell the mug at a profit, just at cost. And it would be a special mug for take out, though washable / reusable, and I would sell advertising on it.

Paper cups are just a symptom of the disposable society we have become, Francis. I think it is an enormous issue.

EDIT: p.s. I like your idea of deposit on real mugs though!

agreed, our disposible society is wasteful and that needs to change.

but zym, you have said you would like to open a coffee shop. obviously you only want a very select few to frequent your coffee shop. you certainly don't want me to go there, because sometimes i forget my mug in my rush to get everyone organized and too school. i want to buy a coffee to enjoy on the way to work. i don't want to carry a ceramic mug of coffee on the bus or in my car. i don't want every cup of coffee to cost me $5+ because i have to buy a travel mug each time i go into your store.

i like michel ange's approach at their coffee shop. if you bring your mug, coffee is $1. that is big incentive to me to bring my mug, because i can afford $1 a day. i don't see how that is a sustainable business model though.

I hope when we open our shop I'll be able to stick to my guns, but I think I will. We've considered a number of options including charging $1 per cup for disposable cups - in which case we'd probably donate proceeds to some environmental fund.

Who is talking about ceramic mugs? If I used Francis' idea I'd do it with stainless travel mugs. They are cheap enough to source so you could do that for a $2 or $3 deposit or something like that.

And I think if there were a shop around who really stuck to it's guns on eco issues and lifted the matter to the next level, that people who were real eco-geeks would go out of their way to shop there. i.e. if we had no disposable cups, a lot of people would shop there for that reason.

I think paying a $2 deposit on a stainless travel mug could/would work. We pay a deposit on those 25L jugs of water. I don't even know how much it is ($5 ? or $10 ?) because I just get it back and recycle it when I bring the empty back and buy the next one.

The difference between this and bringing your own mug, is simple. You don't have to wash it (and people may not have a place to wash their mugs, or it's too inconvenient). You just bring back the one you had before and get another clean one filled with coffee. The deposit is recycled.

I think travel mugs at mec are $5, so I'm sure they must be cheap to source.

Zym, I do think your idea has merit and I do see how it could work and who it would attrack, provided people can afford it. I know you practice re-use, so a shop that works on re-use over recycling would be unique to the area.

@hip, it was my idea actually. But if zym implements it, I will be a customer for sure.

I did not know that about Michel Ange and the $1 coffee.
But I think they are trying to get more new business- recently they had a deal one one of those deal of the day sites- 3 half pound bags of coffee for $7!
I bought that as it sounds like they make great coffee!

Good luck with the coffee business--I personally brew a pot at home each morning, then fill a travel mug for myself and partner. We like Second Cup coffee. Brewing at home definitely keeps the cost down.

Not many places make black coffee good. Bridgehead is one of them. Second cup and Tims, IMHO, are not good black.

Yes, drinking it black is a litmus test of really good coffee.

I had a Second Cup a few months ago in desperation - and took a few sips and dumped it out. I decided to go black and did not taste it til I was in my car. Yuck. I probably could have stomached it with cream and sugar though.

Just to mention, wrt the pay a deposit for a cup, that this is what the beer gardens do in Germany - beer is 3 euros, plus a deposit of another couple for the glass.

Tim's to offer real expresso for $2:

www.thestar.com

The new espresso-based coffees will include lattes, mocha lattes and cappuccinos.

The retailer will use 100 per cent Arabica beans.

But will Tim Hortons’ customers – often portrayed as sensible, hard-working families buy a product associated with Starbucks’ urban elite image?

“Our demographics are so broad,” said Moir. “I think what we’ve been able to do here is mainstream this product. Part of the reason people don’t buy them today is simply because they’re quite expensive.”

An espresso-based latte at Starbucks, for example, starts at $3.52 for an 8 ounce cup. In comparison, Tim Hortons is charging just $2 for a 10-ounce espresso based drink.

Tim Hortons has customers who drink both regular coffee and espresso-based coffee, often at different times of the day and on different occasions. Moir added.

While regular coffee sells well in the morning, specialty coffees are more of a mid-afternoon treat, he said.

Canadians bought 1.96 billion cups of hot coffee for the year ending August, 2011, according to The NPD Group, a leading market research firm. Of those, just over 1.7 billion were brewed coffee, while 258 million were espresso-based beverages. Brewed coffee consumption was flat while espresso-based coffee rose 2 percentage points over the previous year.

Are they changing the espresso that they all ready offer? I've had espresso at Tim Horton's back home on the West Coast and it was definitely nothing I would touch again.

Tim's again - soft lighting and wifi plans:

ottawa.ctv.ca

This is a bit surprising since the article starting this thread seem to indicate baked goods and wifi are loss generators. At best baked goods are only break even (but considering leftover spoilage probably a loss maker), and people sitting the shops for hours after buying a coffee are just consuming valuable utility and rent space.

An improved ambience won't make me visit more often. Improved products would.

@blubarry, it almost seems like management doesn't know what to do next, other than copy the competition. That's usually not a good sign.

Still Tim's has a very loyal following. But I drink my coffee black, and theirs is a very bitter black.

That would be from the Robusta beans Francis. Note with their new espresso they mention it is 100% Arabica. They make no such claims about their regular coffee. That's also what makes it so high in caffeine

@zym, thanks for the info. I don't think it will be easy to change the ambiance at most Tims locations though. And doing so may upset their regular customers. It may turn out to be a "New Coke" type of thing.