Top Qualities of a Coffee Shop
Top Qualities of a Coffee Shop
Top Qualities of a Coffee Shop
Elements that Make a Great Coffee Shop
Why do you love your favorite coffee shop?
Perhaps it's their unique coffee drinks, ambiance, or customer service. Friendly baristas who serve delicious drinks at affordable prices top the list with many customers.
Whatever your reason, something special always drives you back to visit your coffee shop again and again. Sometimes what makes your coffee shop great consists of the small details.
So whether you are currently running a cafe – or simply thinking about starting a drive-thru coffee stand or mobile coffee trailer, it's essential to consider the qualities your customers will want and expect from you.
This article will discuss the top qualities you'll likely want to have for your coffee shop.
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Why Care About the Top Qualities of Coffee Shops?
We've all had poor experiences or poorly served food or drinks. The chances are you've never been back since, right?
No one likes to pay for bad service or products, including you and me. In many cities and communities, stiff competition should force coffee shop owners to kick up their efforts because customers often have finicky loyalty.
A poor experience – just once – could mean a lost customer forever.
Striving to improve and deliver top quality to customers means having the privilege to survive and hopefully be a long-term profitable coffee business.
Simply put, your customers, hired baristas, investors, and family care about offering those qualities that will sustain and grow your coffee business.
To deliver top quality, you have to know your customer.
For example, surveys suggest that customers over 35 years of age put more “value” on cleanliness, location, and atmosphere. Younger customers, on the other hand, put emphasis on lower costs or to be kid-friendly places, according to Restaurant Hospitality.
So, let's take a look at these qualities below:
Top Qualities of a Coffee Shop
Top Qualities of a Coffee Shop
Below are some top qualities you may want to aim for when opening your coffee shop.
Serves Excellent Coffee
Serving excellent coffee is why you're in the coffee business. Can you imagine a wine shop owner or a cheese shop owner – only serving mediocre to average wine or cheese? No!
But coffee shop owners do this all the time. ALL THE TIME!
Serving excellent specialty coffee that you curate means much more than most think. Serving customers the best coffee means you value your judgment in visiting your coffee shop.
It demonstrates your interest in delivering unique roasting profiles, flavors, and the story behind each cup.
If you're interested in serving the best coffee beans but unsure where to start, explore wholesale coffee roasters in your area. Attend coffee cuppings or explore what other cafes and coffee shops are serving. If you're already open, consider rotating your coffee roaster offerings. Many coffee shops offer multiple coffee roasts from different roasters. If you roast your own coffee beans, hold public coffee cuppings to allow customers to sample and appreciate your efforts.
Further Reading: How to Choose a Coffee Roaster
Provide Excellent Customer Service (Everytime)
There is no excuse for poor customer service.
Customers might forgive mediocre coffee but never poor service. Aside from the quality of the coffee you serve, customer service is the most critical aspect of the retail coffee business.
Indeed, customer service begins at the top with you, the owner. Your actions and leadership will demonstrate how you professionally interact with customers. This leadership, in turn, creates the company culture you'll craft for customer and financial success.
Certainly, finding and hiring great baristas is at the forefront of providing excellent service. Next comes barista training. Training your baristas will help you affirm your company culture and how you want to serve your customers.
Offer Various Food Options
Your coffee shop menu is what drives your sales. It is also the primary reason why your customers visit your business.
Offering a tasty, fresh, and healthy selection of what your customers want will make your coffee business a hit with the local market.
Therefore, work hard to freshen up your coffee shop menu board and provide the products your customers desire.
What you provide is often driven by the needs of your customers. If you have busy lunchtime customers, consider expanding your lunch menu. If you have students or early morning commuters, expand your to-go menu and schedule your baristas to ensure your customers are served as quickly as possible.
Pricing Your Items Just Right
Getting your pricing right is important for you – as well as your customers. Your prices should reflect the total cost of your items and have your profit margin built in, but also remain competitive enough that your customers feel like they are getting a good deal. We discuss how to price your coffee shop items in our post, How to Price Your Coffee Beverages.
Further Reading: 15+ Ways to Make Your Coffee Business More Profitable
Offer An Amazing Experience Consistently
Providing a consistently positive and welcoming experience is a top quality for any business, especially a coffee shop.
Today, in most cities, customers have choices. A poor experience will almost guarantee future lost sales.
You and your baristas must provide consistently friendly and above-average experiences to maintain customer loyalty. Consistently good experiences demand value in training, accountability, and empowerment. Baristas with the proper training, support, and sense of value will offer the consistency most customers seek.
Great Management
Being at the helm of an organization is an important position.
Unfortunately, many coffee shop owners are not always great coffee shop managers.
The inability to lead and make sound managerial decisions can lead your business down a bumpy road to failure.
There are many reasons why coffee shops fail – being a poor manager is undoubtedly among them.
Great managers plan and make adaptations to their conditions. They work with their strengths and cultivate a positive team who works towards a vision.
The value of good management as a top quality cannot be overstated. We've covered this extensively in our post, How to Be an Amazing Coffee Shop Manager.
Offers a Great Work Environment
Excellent management also includes providing a great place to work. If you're happy, your staff and baristas are happy – then your customers will likely be satisfied too.
Providing a safe and welcoming workplace is top quality for coffee shops. An inclusive place where your baristas are paid fairly, on time, and free of harassment will go a long way to attracting and maintaining great baristas.
Baristas and the rest of your staff are the face of your business. Without your team, you'll struggle to succeed in the long run.
Further Reading: 15+ Traits You Need to Be a Great Coffee Shop Owner
Coffee Shop Location Matters
Prime locations provide for prime revenue.
Location is among the most critical aspects of any retail business. After all, you can offer the best coffee, amazing food, and incredible service, but you'll struggle to get customers if your coffee shop is in a terrible location.
A poor location leads to a poor revenue problem.
Therefore, finding the best coffee shop location will take effort, time, and preparation. Prior to searching for your coffee shop location, I would first begin by developing your coffee shop concept, determine your core coffee shop menu, and then look for your target market. Who in your general community will respond to your concept and menu?
Where would you best serve your market?
First, preparing for your location will be critical. This means having a written business plan ready to go, a core menu developed, your source coffee shop funding figured out – and your access to money available.
For more information, read our article, 15 Great Locations to Start a Coffee Shop.
Top Qualities of a Coffee Shop
Create Ambiance
Creating a unique setting and ambiance will dramatically impact your sales, repeat business, and generate perceived value with all of your products.
Coffee shops have an extraordinary opportunity to create a safe, calm, and relaxing refuge from the everyday hustle and bustle of the real world.
Indeed, your ambiance will change your customers' day for the better, leaving them feel good about their purchase and spending their time in your coffee shop.
Creating an ambiance that works with your coffee brand and product offerings is a complicated and thoughtful process. It requires consideration for your design and layout, furniture, lighting, color scheme and customer service.
Delivering Value
Delivering value is both quantitative and qualitative. You can count it in some ways, while in others, it is not measurable.
For example, Starbucks delivers value through its consistent products, service, and brand. Whether you like Starbucks or not, there's no arguing that its customers find more value than just purchasing coffee.
Delivering value means meeting your customers' expectations whenever and wherever you can and pushing the limits of your creativity in products, services, and customer experience.
Answer this question for yourself before stepping into the coffee business. You have to determine your value in advance – and deliberately communicate it to your customers. How do you intend to deliver high value that your customers will:
- Remember
- Enjoy
- Offer repeat business
Top Qualities of a Coffee Shop
Seasoned coffee shop owners understand the value that each of these discussed elements, among others, bring to their customers.
Achieving many of these top qualities is often intentional. That is, you need to work for it, strive for it and plan for it.
Maintaining these top qualities is a challenge by itself. It requires continuous creativity, a strong and positive company culture, as well as barista training.
Related Questions:
How do I hire amazing baristas?
The baristas you bring on to your team will play a significant role in your effort to offer great coffee and customer service. Your coffee shop employees are your front line in fulfilling your vision, and revenue goals and delivering high service and value.
Therefore, hiring responsible, trustworthy, and reliable people can be a challenge. We explore how you can hire great employees in our post, How to Hire Amazing Baristas.
How Can I Be Sure I'll Be a Great Coffee Shop Owner?
Being a great coffee shop owner requires thoughtful engagement and hands-on participation. Being responsive to the needs of your employees and customers is a top quality. The hard part is to sustain that engagement and to sustain interest in the growth and vision of your coffee business.
For more information, read our How to Be an Amazing Coffee Shop Manager.
How to Settle on a Coffee Shop Concept
Offering top-quality items over the long requires embracing your coffee shop concept.
If you haven't decided which coffee shop concept or idea you'd like to settle on, consider all the factors at play, including your budget, location, and competition.
If you're still unsure, read our post, Coffee Shop Concepts & Ideas.
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