What does it take to open a boutique coffee shop?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “what equipment do you need to open a coffee shop“
What does it take to open a boutique coffee shop?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “what equipment do you need to open a coffee shop“
You can find the technical answer anywhere. If you just want to know how to source beans and get the best brewing equipment, that is easy to do and quite unimaginative.
Success comes from the soul. Success comes from the heart. Success comes from giving your customer an experience she cannot get anywhere else.
My creative process begins by sitting in a calm darkened room with a cup of my favorite coffee, a pen and a pad of paper. Imagine who you want your customer to be. Where do they live? Where do they work? What do they value? How much will they tolerate spending? Close your eyes. What type of environment are they comfortable in? Take notes. Make sketches. What types of magazines do they read? How do they like to appear to other people? Think vivi…
For full disclosure I work for a specialty coffee equipment supplier. I’ll give thoughts and some links for the categories you gave:
Sourcing Beans :
I’m guessing you’re going to want to do your own roasting from the next category, but if you’re wanting to start the shop using other roasters’ coffees I would recommend getting in touch with any roasters local to you and asking about setting up a wholesale account. If you’re talking about sourcing green coffee beans to roast, one of the most widely used sourcing companies is Cafe Imports – http://www.cafeimports.com/ Another popular sourcing company is Royal Coffee – http://www.royalcoffee.com/index.asp For a company that offers specialty lots you can also check out Coffee Shrub – http://www.coffeeshrub.com/
Roasting Beans:
The Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) has some good resources to help you get started. I would recommend browsing the “quick links” section in their library (it can be hard to navigate) – http://www.scaa.org/?page=library For a place to buy a commercial roaster from you can look at:
US Roasters – http://www.usroastercorp.com/
Diedrich -http://www.diedrichroasters.com/
Ambex – http://www.ambexroasters.com/index.html
Equipment
There are a number of equipment suppliers that can outfit your cafe, obviously I’m a little biased and would recommend Prima Coffee – http://prima-coffee.com/ You can message me if you have any questions.
Cost of Capital
I would recommend trying to get in touch and ask questions with other shop owners. One good place to do this is in the Retail Coffee Business Section on Barista Exchange – http://www.baristaexchange.com/forum/categories/retail-coffee-business/listForCategory
I would also recommend checking out the U.S. Small Business Administration website which has a page specific to starting a business – http://www.sba.gov/category/navigation-structure/starting-managing-business
It might be worth searching around your city to see if there are any organizations or non-profits that offer resources for entrepreneurs and small business start-ups.
Employees
Along with an interview I would encourage having the applicants prepare an espresso, cappuccino, and brew coffee on a manual brewing method. This can be a quick tell of their knowledge and experience. There are also some good resources on hiring and training in the Barista Exchange page that I linked above.
Hope this helps!