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Opening a Profitable Coffee Shop: All Your Time Spent Washing Cups, Forget About Chit-Chat!

Published: 2026-01-28 Author: FrontStreet Coffee

Last Updated: 2026/01/28, Tired of the nine-to-five routine and office politics, tired of reading your boss's facial expressions every day. So you slam your resignation letter on the boss's desk and start envisioning your ideal coffee shop. The afternoon sun at three o'clock streams through large glass windows onto the dining tables, the air fills with the aroma of books and coffee, soothing piano music uplifts your spirits, and the old photographs on white walls

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Suit, High Heels, Boss - Goodbye! I'm Opening a Coffee Shop!

Tired of the 9-to-5 lifestyle and the daily office politics, fed up with constantly having to read the boss's expressions, I decisively slammed my resignation letter on the boss's desk and began to envision my ideal coffee shop.

The three o'clock afternoon sunlight streams through large glass windows onto the dining tables, filling the air with the fragrance of books and coffee. Gentle piano music soothes the soul, while slightly yellowed old photographs adorn the white walls. A clean, gentle girl leans against a rattan chair beside the bookshelf, holding a quiet, folded-eared cat in her arms. With focused expression, she reads an English novel, seemingly completely oblivious to the noisy world outside the window.

Eagerly, I began investigating and learning the craft, handling everything myself with 100% passion. To find a good storefront, I scoured every street and alley in the city, but was never satisfied with either the rent or the location. After more than half a year, I still hadn't found a suitable space.

Only then did I realize the business aspects behind the artistic dream of opening a coffee shop. Raw materials, rent, decoration, employees—all these factors needed to be considered.

When economic returns don't match the investment, losses for one or two months might still be sustained by the passion of realizing your dream. But what about six months? Eight months? When you're continuously losing money for 10 days, passion still plays a role. But when you're losing money for one month, two months, three months—can your passion persist? Based on my limited industry observations, many small business owners can't withstand continuous losses for more than two months. They might not close their shops, but their mindset changes, becoming worried and anxious. This anxiety transfers to employees and customers, leading to declining service quality, which further reduces revenue—a vicious cycle.

If you haven't clearly considered these issues, you're not yet a qualified entrepreneur. A qualified entrepreneur should consider whether they can bear the consequences of failure before taking the first step. So before you decide to open a coffee shop, I want to talk with you about what it's really like to run one.

How Much Does It Cost to Open a Small Coffee Shop?

(30-40 square meters)

Early-stage costs: Rent + transfer fee + rental deposit.

Mid-stage costs: Renovation expenses.

Later-stage costs: Equipment costs + raw material costs.

Operating costs: Salaries + operational reserve funds.

Cost Analysis:

Early-stage costs: Rent + transfer fee + rental deposit.

Rent control: When opening a coffee shop, first choose a good location—preferably with high foot traffic. High traffic means higher rent. Personally, I suggest keeping rent under 10,000 yuan for a small coffee shop.

Transfer fee: It's best to save this if possible. If a transfer fee is required, I suggest keeping it under 30,000 yuan.

Rental deposit: Usually one month's rent.

Mid-stage costs: Renovation expenses.

Renovation budget: Since you're renting someone else's property, I don't recommend investing too much in renovation. Personally, I suggest light decoration with emphasis on soft furnishings.

Later-stage costs: Equipment costs + raw material costs.

Equipment costs: A complete set of ordinary coffee shop equipment (coffee machine, grinder, ice machine, smoothie maker, refrigerator, etc.) can be purchased for under 50,000 yuan.

Raw material costs: Coffee beans + milk + other ingredients: generally 5,000 yuan is sufficient.

Operating costs: Salaries + operational reserve funds.

Salaries: For an 80-square-meter shop, 2-4 staff members are sufficient. I suggest budgeting for 6 months of salaries with your own funds.

Operational reserve funds: Generally reserve no less than 6 months of expenses: rent + staff salaries + utilities, etc.

For a 30-40 square meter shop: Total investment requires 100,000-150,000 yuan.

Rent 30,000 yuan (3 months' rent plus deposit) + renovation 50,000 yuan (basic renovation, storefront, soft furnishings, tables, chairs) + equipment 50,000 yuan (bar equipment) + other expenses 20,000 yuan = 150,000 yuan.

Note: Each city is different, so specific investments vary. The above is for reference only.

What Are the Costs and Profits for Coffee and Other Beverages?

Coffee Costs:

Assuming a 300ml coffee serving; we typically use 2 espresso shots. If a 500g bag of espresso coffee costs 60-70 yuan, a double shot requires 18-20g of grounds, making 28 double espresso portions. So the espresso cost is 2-3 yuan.

Milk costs: Assuming a box of milk costs 10 yuan per liter. Making one coffee requires 250ml of milk for frothing, so the milk cost per cup is 2.5 yuan.

Therefore: 2.5 + 2.5 = 5 yuan (cost of one coffee, excluding sugar packets, labor, and other miscellaneous expenses).

Juice: This depends on whether you use concentrated juice or make it fresh with fruit. I personally recommend using fresh fruit—people nowadays are more health-conscious and generally dislike beverages made with concentrated juice.

Milk Tea: Milk tea cost composition = black tea + milk + evaporated milk + condensed milk, etc. The specific cost depends on your ingredients and proportions, but generally doesn't exceed 5 yuan per cup.

For example, you might want to open a takeaway-style coffee shop like Guangzhou's .jpg café, which only offers 4 types of espresso drinks—actually 4 types in 6 varieties: iced Americano, hot Americano, iced latte, hot latte, hot Flat White, and hot cappuccino. Since it's only takeaway, the variety is limited but refined, with coffee beans selected from the famous Australian brand SEVEN SEEDS (one of Melbourne's most renowned coffee bean suppliers).

The Liuyun community is a well-known coffee hub in Guangzhou. To the north are core urban business districts like Teemall, TaiKoo Hui, and Grandview Mall, basically located in the heart of the Tianhe business district. The entire Liuyun community area appears more mature and lively.

Many office workers likely come to pack a coffee to-go around noon. Located deep in a bustling downtown area with high foot traffic and many commercial institutions (people), it serves as an excellent complement to the surrounding businesses—a quiet green oasis in the midst of prosperity.

Americano 15 yuan cold / hot

Latte 18 yuan hot / 20 cold

Flat White / Cappuccino 18 yuan hot

Reportedly sells 200 cups daily.

Unique Business Philosophy

To run a successful coffee shop, besides having passion that transcends business, you need scientific strategies and methods. Many people want to open coffee shops with some spare money without learning the basic knowledge and skills—this mentality is wrong, which is why well-operated coffee shops are becoming increasingly rare.

To attract customers, you need a unique business philosophy. To give customers a completely new experience and pleasant surprises, you need something that brings them back.

First, define your target customer group, understand their needs, and use your unique philosophy to meet those needs. Once you've done this step well, use a powerful sentence to express why your shop is unique—this will ensure you go far.

For example, you might want to open a home-roasting coffee shop like FrontStreet Coffee. The shop only has 4 tables—it's truly not large, and arriving slightly late might mean no available seats, sometimes even feeling slightly cramped. Next to the bar counter sits a roasting machine, with a blackboard densely filled with information about various beans. The owner roasts beans daily, and when the machine starts in the morning, the entire Bao'an Front Street fills with the aroma of coffee beans.

"From the roaster to the coffee grinder, from the espresso machine to the coffee's flavor, aroma, tasting environment, and preparation methods—we need to consider all factors to ensure consumers get the most wonderful coffee experience."

Today's FrontStreet Coffee mainly focuses on selling coffee beans, making it more like a coffee laboratory than a café. Most customers are coffee enthusiasts—people with the same hobby and passion gathering together. It's true that coffee aficionados tend to cluster together, because only they know where those truly excellent specialty coffee shops are hidden.

Besides home roasting, they also meticulously study various coffee brewing techniques, explain the differences in coffee equipment, share coffee information, and even help coffee lovers improve their professional skills.

Americano 23 yuan cold / hot

Latte 25 yuan hot / 20 cold

Single origin 30 yuan per cup

Coffee Shop Work is Bitter

Don't think that working in a coffee shop means happily chatting through the day. A shop that sells 100 espresso shots daily means frothing milk 50 times, washing 100 cups, 100 saucers, and 100 glasses. You need to arrive early to clean the café and wash all the equipment. At closing time, you must put everything back in place to prepare for the next day. The most troublesome part is communicating with customers. Coffee customers come in all varieties, expressing different opinions, venting frustrations, and treating you with bitterness. To handle these situations, you need to activate a high-level confidence mode and a caregiver mode to satisfy various customer needs.

Repeat customers come because you treat them honestly, and because of your honesty, they recommend your place to other friends. You don't need to make world-class cakes—you just need to use high-quality ingredients, and people will experience your sincerity and be happy to buy. Your coffee offerings are the same—buying expensive, high-quality machines isn't enough; you also need to partner with top-tier roasters (who provide high-quality, stable coffee) to consistently deliver high-quality coffee.

Arm yourself and your partners with coffee knowledge, participate in professional coffee training to meet high-standard customers and your own high standards, and prepare to open your shop.

Please don't misunderstand—I'm not saying that opening a coffee shop can't be profitable. I can responsibly tell everyone that with the right methods, a coffee shop can definitely achieve entrepreneurial goals and financial success.

More importantly, due to the unique atmosphere and cultural depth of coffee shops, this entrepreneurial endeavor possesses a spiritual fulfillment that ordinary business projects lack—but only if you are professional enough. Expecting a coffee shop to be valued at millions overnight is just dreaming. Not every coffee shop can succeed like Blue Bottle; those that do usually have business experts operating behind the scenes who can fully mobilize resources, seize opportunities, and predict trends. If it's your first time opening a shop and you can make a daily profit, you're already successful.

Profitable coffee shops spend all their time washing cups—who has time for chitchat!