How to Open a Mini Café

How to Open a Mini Café

How to Open a Mini Café

If you are considering starting a coffee shop, there are many different and exciting coffee business concepts to choose from.

While brick-and-mortar coffee shops are always the mainstay, you can also start a mobile coffee business or a drive-thru coffee stand.

Yet, aside from these, are there other ways?

Fortunately, when it comes to coffee, there is always another way!

In this post, we’ll talk about starting a mini café, its benefits, and how you can get started with your mini café business planning.

Further Reading: Low-Cost Coffee Shop Business Ideas

What is a mini café?

A mini café is a very small coffee business. Its small space often restricts baristas and customers when compared to a “regular-sized” café. This requires mini café business owners to make necessary adaptations in layout, equipment size, and menu options.

Not all mini cafes are alike – they come in all shapes and sizes. However, what they do share is that they have very limited or no available seating. Often, their customers may have to order coffee and other items while standing outside the business.

Their uniqueness in size often makes mini cafés appealing to potential customers. This built-in attractiveness is one benefit of why you may want to consider starting a mini café seriously.

Benefits of Having a Mini Café

• Fewer startup costs
• Profitability
• Lower operational costs
• Strategic placement
• Curb appeal
• Potential to grow

Having a mini café can offer its owners a wide variety of benefits. First, your mini café may cost less to start up than a traditional or regular-sized coffee shop. For prospective business owners who have never stepped into the waters of a retail coffee business – it’s an excellent opportunity to try yourself and see if it’s the right direction for you. Starting a small cafe can grow into a big coffee business over time.

Renting commercial space in many large and small cities can often be a big challenge for aspiring coffee shop owners. However, avoiding high monthly rents can be a welcoming option for many.

Reducing your coffee shop buildout costs

Buildouts are generally the most significant startup costs for many coffee shop owners. But, by opening a mini-café, the space requires you to pair down your buildout to only what is necessary. Reducing your coffee shop buildout costs is yet another appealing reason to open a mini café.

The physical size and potentially more modest operational cost may make having a mini café more manageable for a new business owner. Additionally, while you may decide to hire baristas, you may not need to hire that many employees because your physical space limits your options.

The uniqueness of mini cafes is that they can be strategically situated to capture the most customers in a given area. For example, they could be near a metro, bus line, or pedestrian thoroughfare. A more extensive coffee shop or chain may overlook such potential mini café spots because of their needed space.

Finally, the appeal of being small sparks a natural curiosity in customers. A mini café is cute and needs to be visited at least once.

Your product displays could get a little packed in a mini cafe.

Small Coffee Shops, Big Profits

Your sales volume or your capacity to serve customers may be limited by the equipment that you have.

In other words, you may not be able to serve as many customers as a “normal-sized” coffee shop would. However, with larger cafés, your fixed and variable costs are most certainly higher. That means your revenue may not be as high as a larger café, but your profit margin can be on par with a regular coffee shop. But, of course, how much revenue you bring in is dependent on several important factors.

For more information, read our post, How Much Does a Coffee Shop Owner Make?

Your Mini Café Menu

What kind of beverages and food can you serve in your mini café?

Your café’s menu is often the determining factor when choosing your coffee shop equipment. However, in a mini café, things get a little interesting because of the size and layout dynamics.

Despite the small workspace, you will need room to safely move about and have the appropriate exits and safety installations to pass your building’s department inspections.

So, while your menu plays a central role, so too does the ultimate size of your space. The size of your coffee business will determine the type of equipment you’ll need and their size. For example, if you intend to serve fried foods, your local buildings department may require you to have a fire suppressant station and vent that may or may not fit within your space.

The good news is that you can often find small commercial equipment and adapt to serving the food and beverages you want.

Keep Things Simple

While you can still offer your customers a wide spectrum of coffee shop menu items, I recommend keeping things as simple as possible.

Everything you serve will need to have adequate storage and multiple ingredients. For example, if you decide to serve sandwiches, you will need sufficient space for various loaves of bread, meat, lettuce, tomatoes, condiments, etc.

Your space may limit the number of syrups, teas, and other items you usually have.

A Menu That Maximizes Your Profits

The good thing about a mini café is that it forces you to prioritize, especially regarding your menu. You’ll likely only be forced to carry those items that are the most profitable and that your customers want. You won’t be able to carry everything your customers may want, so mini café owners would have to decide on those items that bring in the most revenue and profits.

How to Look for a Mini Café Location

The perfect location for a mini café is not always the easiest to find. Unless a previous business existed in that spot or you purchased an existing mini café, you might have to search long and hard for that perfect mini space.

You often have to visualize the mini café in a commercial space that does not yet exist. Perhaps a business already exists but doesn’t need all the space they have. If this is the case, they may be convinced to partition a space allowing you to set yourself within a mini area.  

There are several critical elements to consider when deciding on a coffee shop location.

Among these location factors are:

• Accessibility
• Enough Traffic
• Reaches the Right Target Market
• Fits Your Budget

For more information on choosing the right coffee shop location, read our post, How to Choose The Right Coffee Shop Location.

Requirements & Zoning

As with other regular-sized coffee shops, you will want to check with your local buildings department and health department before you start your search. Some agencies may require a particular space around a proposed business or entrance to be clear of any light poles, bus stops, signs, trees, or other structural objects.

Review the standard requirements for starting a business by reading our post, Requirements to Start a Coffee Shop.

What You Need To Start a Mini Café

Decide on your mini café concept:

Even though you have a mini café, it does not mean that you have a mini concept. There is a difference! The concept is not just being a small coffee business. It’s a whole range of characteristics tied by one idea. For example, benefit your local community or deliver unique value that no one else does.

Your specific mini café concept, your brand, and your products can create an incredible impression with local coffee customers and impact your community.

You may consider incorporating some of the many unique coffee shop business concepts out there within your mini café.

Check out our post on Coffee Shop Concepts and Ideas to look at different concepts.

Your Coffee Shop Business Plan

Writing a mini-cafe business plan is an essential part of the planning process. Don’t be misled by the idea that a small coffee shop doesn’t need a business plan. On the contrary, due to its size and concept, a mini cafe might need even more planning and adjustments. Your plan will help spell out all the elements that need to be considered before you open your doors.

Your articulated plan will spell out your vision, mission, funding needs, projected revenue, and other essentials that you will want to look at before spending significant money.

In addition to potentially saving you time and money, your property manager and lending institutions may require your business plan.

For an in-depth look at coffee shop business plans, please check out our post, How to Get Started With Your Coffee Shop Business Plan.

Your Mini-Coffee Shop Buildout

Unless you are buying an existing coffee business, you’ll have to build out your mini café in a manner that allows you to serve the maximum number of customers.

Your mini café will need to be well-designed for efficiency. Additionally, your buildout must be approved by the buildings and local health departments.

However, space constraints can really bring out your creative side. You’ll have to design your layout thinking out of the box to ensure you can comfortably work and serve your customers efficiently. Be sure to connect with your local Building and Health Departments to know their requirements and how they will impact your business planning and spending.

Related Questions

What’s the Difference Between a Mini Café and a Drive-Thru Coffee Stand?

While a drive-thru coffee stand is generally a small coffee business within an enclosed space, it is a slightly different concept. Whereas customers drive up to a stand, a mini-café is typically viewed as pedestrian only.

For more information on starting a drive-thru coffee stand, read our post, How to Start a Drive-Thru Coffee Stand.

Should I Invest in a Mobile Coffee Business Instead?

Being mobile has many perks and is an excellent option for many interested in operating a coffee business.

The two coffee business concepts are very different from one another, as a mobile coffee business allows you to serve coffee in many different locations.

For an in-depth look at starting a mobile coffee business, read our post, How to Start a Mobile Coffee Truck.

How Should I Fund My Mini Café?

Determining how you fund your coffee shop will be essential to your coffee business planning. First, you should develop a well-thought-out budget and estimate your funding needs. From there, you can create a funding mix strategy of how you intend to get the needed funds to launch your mini café.

Are You Ready To Get Started?

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Based in Seattle, Washington, USA, Coffee Shop Startups is dedicated to providing you with the most relevant information on how to start a coffee shop business successfully. Over the last 11 years, we've helped thousands of aspiring coffee business owners worldwide. We harness the experience, wisdom, and knowledge of many successful coffee shop owners to help you increase your chances of success and profits. We support business owners who want to start a coffee business by providing them with valuable information on starting their coffee business successfully.