How to Open a Coffee Shop? What Preparation and Costs Are Needed to Start a Café?

I knew it — you still want to open your own coffee shop, don't you!

Fine then! Since you're set on it, let's talk about everything opening a café actually requires. Every shop has its own style, and some decisions only you can make. What follows may not fit everyone, but use it as a reference to build a plan that suits your own shop.

Research Before Opening

Before anything else, think about what a coffee shop really is and what skills running one demands. Operating a café is hands-on work. Watching others succeed, or thinking making coffee looks simple, is not the same as doing it.

So before opening, gather information and build real knowledge reserves — not just brewing technique and coffee theory, but fund management, staffing, and the nuts and bolts of running a shop.

Working in someone else's café is a great way to learn — as long as it's a reliable one. Even if the job falls short of expectations, calm down and observe everything beyond the counter: learn to talk with customers early and accumulate service experience. That matters more than fixating on brewing technique alone. Some things can only be learned firsthand. Along the way you'll meet like-minded people, and those connections may help enormously once your own shop opens.

About Positioning

Positioning starts with a simple question: why do you want to open a coffee shop? How do you turn that idea into something concrete? Cafés share commonalities, but as the owner you surely want yours to have its own character. Opening impulsively, without thinking through positioning, is very risky.

Use the 6 Ws and 2 Hs: Why open a café? What will you primarily sell? When will you open? Who are your target customers? Who will run it? Where will it be? How — what style? How much — what startup capital do you have?

Determining the Menu

No café exists without a menu — it's the shop's signature. Remember: the menu should be decided when you decide to open, not when the shop is ready to operate. Consider your region, customer demographics, neighboring shops, and local needs. Only after grasping the area's demands can you build a menu people will accept.

Then comes pricing. What range is appropriate? Start with the food cost formula: Food Cost % = Raw Material Cost ÷ Selling Price × 100%. Generally, food cost shouldn't exceed 30% of the selling price. But that's materials only — add rent, labor, utilities, and other costs based on your actual situation.

Location Selection

Location can make or break the shop. When scouting, first narrow the region and do plenty of fieldwork. Once you find a space you like, verify it's suitable for food and beverage use, that water, electricity, and gas work properly, what restrictions apply to interior and exterior decoration, and whether the rent and deposit are reasonable.

Essential Funds

Startup money doesn't appear from nowhere, so funding is the first thing to plan. Create a detailed budget covering what every café must spend on: rent, interior and exterior decoration, equipment and tableware, advertising and promotion, material inventory, and operating reserves.

Managing Money After Opening

Opening is easy; operating is hard. After launch, rent and labor are unavoidable monthly expenses (count your own time cost even if you work alone). Without corresponding revenue, it's easy to spiral into losses. So learn in advance how to balance expenses against income, and be ready to adjust your positioning when necessary.

First, clarify monthly fixed expenses: rent, labor, and depreciation of fixed assets — the monthly share of decoration and equipment costs spread over their usable period. Then forecast revenue, where revenue equals average customer spending × daily customer traffic. Daily traffic can be estimated as seats × table turnover × seat utilization, or as foot traffic × attraction rate — calculated separately for weekdays, weekends, and holidays. Finally, set the break-even point: check how much working capital you have, then apply fixed expenses ÷ (1 - working capital ÷ revenue).

Don't be too idealistic in these calculations; base everything on reality.

Business Qualifications

The most time-consuming part is the paperwork. Regulations differ by location and by positioning, but two are essential everywhere: the food business permit and the business license. Both require application to the relevant departments and a round of verification and inspection. So once you fix an opening date, apply early and give yourself enough time.

Equipment Investment

Spend within your means — expensive isn't automatically better. Value for money, staying inside your affordable range, matters most. Don't blindly throw money at top-tier equipment at the start; you truly don't need to. Upgrade gradually once operations stabilize. Keep early-stage costs lean, and don't be overly optimistic about the future — that's not discouragement, it's reality.

Design and Decoration

Before decorating, lock down the shop's style, then design around the actual space. Beyond style and aesthetics, plan the allocation between the customer area and the counter/kitchen, plus the workflow design.

Staff workflow should let the team operate efficiently from order to serving — equipment placement matters, so make the path from operation to serving as seamless as possible. Customer workflow should ensure tables, chairs, and decor don't block movement, and that lighting placement can guide customer routes.

Choosing Suppliers

Whether coffee beans or other materials, choose suppliers, manufacturers, and brands with legal production qualifications. This is very important!

Final Inspection Before Opening

Check that all equipment in the kitchen, counter, customer area, and restroom works properly, that ingredients and materials are fully stocked and within their expiration dates, that cleaning supplies are complete, that the register system functions, and that staff are ready for operations.

About Service

Whatever your personality, the basic principle of service is warmth and generosity — making customers genuinely satisfied. In any industry, service determines whether a shop, company, or brand survives long-term. Get service right, and congratulations — you're 99 years from becoming a century-old establishment!

This article ran long, but reading to the end proves you have the persistence to open your own café. Wishing you prosperous business in advance — may the wealth roll in! Stick to your dreams and do something you won't regret.

Have shop-opening or management experiences to share? Leave them in the comments — they'll be featured right away!

Image source: Internet

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Once your shop is ready, your bean supplier becomes part of your quality control. FrontStreet offers commercial-ready options proven in cafés: the FrontStreet Signature Blend — Brazil Cerrado and Colombia Huila, nearly a decade in service — for classic Americanos and lattes; and the FrontStreet Commercial Blend, an espresso traditional formula with a touch of Robusta for extra crema and body, optimized to keep quality high while controlling costs.

For shops chasing differentiation, the FrontStreet Dark Cocoa Blend (100% Arabica, nut and chocolate, budget-friendly) and the fruit-forward FrontStreet Strawberry Candy Blend — strawberry-gummy sweetness across espresso, latte, and cold brew — round out a menu that stands apart.