How important is it for a coffee shop to stay open for long hours, seven days a week?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “coffee shops open after 6pm“
How important is it for a coffee shop to stay open for long hours, seven days a week?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “coffee shops open after 6pm“
It appears to be the intuitive thing to do – specially when you start up but……
If you develop a reputation for being a great place for quality and service you could find that shortening your hours won’t make much of a difference.
I have had clients cut back from 7 to 6 days with little if any drop in sales. The trick is trying to make your pl…
Location, location and location.
If they are in an industrial area that is open 24 hours a day, then yes it’s important.
Yes if they are located on an interstate. Although one rest stop on I-95 in Virginia had a coffee shop and bakery that closed at 6 pm, even though the place was always packed.
If it’s on a residential area, or a mall then there is no need to be open 24/7.
It depends on the location.
I have known many coffee shops that were open early and closed early (3:00 or 4:00). I have known coffee shops that stayed in business for years and didn’t open until 10:00 AM.
A coffee shop does not need to stay open for long hours to be profitable. That said, most businesses will be open as long as they can make money by being open. There are a number of factors that come into play such as availability of work force, fixed monthly costs, how much the owner wants to work, as well as availability of customers.
That depends on your location, clientele, and market. If, for example, you’re in a college town, you likely need to keep longer hours and be open 7 days, since you’ll have a lot of students in there studying. If you’re in downtown Chicago, for example, you might be able to keep more like normal 8–5 business hours and be closed on weekends (but again, it varies by location. If you’re near the lake or a park with lots of foot traffic on weekends, you need to be there).
So, do you research and know the demographics of your area. You need to be there when your customers are there in enough volume to make it profitable.
Personally, our favorite coffee shop opens at 6am and closes at 6pm, every day. For us it’s the consistency of hours that’s important and like someone else said, we schedule around their hours.
Oh, and from 4 to 6 they sell their coffee and pastries at half price to keep their workers busy, and getting tips, and to sell off all of that days pastries.
I’d suggest before you set hours, you spend two weeks counting the number of people that walk past your shop, each hour, each day. And yes, go earlier and stay later than you plan to be open.
Original question: How important is it for a coffee shop to stay open for long hours, seven days a week?
There is no single answer, because it depends on literally everything including but not limited to:
Who are their customers? If their customers are students, it my be good to stay open later as students may study later. If they allow people to hang out for hours and study, work, surf the web, etc. then they may need longer hours.
What else do they offer/sell? Is this primarily a breakfast stop, so they offer breakfast pastries? Do people come in at all hours so they offer sandwiches and other food? Do they sell packaged coffee – either ground or beans? Do they sell French Presses, espresso pots or other coffee equipment?
When do people in their locale drink coffee – only in the morning or throughout the day? Are there enough customers who come later to justify paying employees to be there?
etc.