DIY - Running a Coffee shop is not just about making coffee - An explanation

Okay, so you want to open a cafe? Excellent. Is it because you love making coffee, or love making food, or love serving customers? Is it because you want to be your own boss? Is it because you think it’s a great way to make loads of money and a great sexy lifestyle?

Well here is a tip. You probably will not be making coffee, or making food, or serving customers all day every day. You will probably also take a long time to make loads of money.  And in many many cases, it is not very sexy. Because when you open a cafe, you open a business. So therefore, quite logically, you will be RUNNING A BUSINESS.

Even if it is very, very small, you will still have to do all the other things that running a business entails. Or, you will have to spend a lot of money on getting experts to do them for you. Now, I know of a very reputable place that offers a two day, how to open a cafe workshop and this is probably one of the best types of courses you could possibly do in London, facilitated by some top experts in the field. But what I also recommend you do are courses in:

How to be an electrician

How to be an accountant

How to be a plumber

How to be a leader

How to do marketing

How to do human resources

How to be a painter

In the past three weeks alone we have done all this ourselves:

• Found a leaking pipe under the floorboards that was dripping into the kitchen. But we had the get the experts in to fix this and it cost £216.
• Fixed a broken flush button on one toilet
• Fixed a broken toilet seat on another toilet
• Unblocked the sewer (twice now)
• Found the reason water was coming under our back wall so had to climb out the back to unblock a gully trap drain, down a man hole, after scaring away the nesting pigeons
• Freshened up high wear areas by re-painting them
• Installed a new lock on a door to the staff area

And that is just a small example. Imagine if we had the experts in to fix all these problems, it would have cost a fortune!

If you want to open a business, that is great, but please do be aware that is does entail a lot of other  things that you have to do as well, not just making coffee, and you need to be a little bit of an expert in everything. DIY.

Peter Dore-Smith
Director
Kaffeine Ltd
66 Great Titchfield st.
15 Eastcastle st.