Key Factors for Coffee Shop Location Selection? Cafe Opening Process & Considerations

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Usually, the most time-consuming aspects of opening a coffee shop are site selection and decoration. These two preparation tasks are also the two major sources of coffee shop expenses. The longer the preparation time, the higher the overall cost will become.

Therefore, before deciding to open a coffee shop, we must first consider and clearly understand three points: why we want to open this shop, the main customer base the coffee shop will serve, and the shop's style. This will allow us to search for a location with purpose and choose decoration materials accordingly.

How to Choose a Storefront

Choosing a storefront becomes the biggest difficulty for many people in the early stages of opening a shop! Many friends, eager to open their shop, fail to make proper considerations regarding the location and storefront, which leads to operational difficulties later on.

The determination of the location and storefront decides whether the future coffee shop will be profitable and efficient, so we need to observe and consider from three aspects.

Location Observation

1. Visibility from Inside the Store

"Look at the storefront from a customer's perspective to see if it can be clearly seen. It must reach a position where the shop's location can be identified at a glance."

2. No Obstructions in Front of the Storefront

"The most common obstructions in front of storefronts are none other than large trees, electrical boxes, street lights, and building pillars. These large, immovable objects will affect customers' line of sight and reduce passersby's attention to the storefront."

3. Choose a Storefront with Similar Target Audience and Record Customer Flow and Types at Different Times

"Location selection should be near/next to businesses with similar customer types. The pricing and types of nearby products should have similarities with your coffee shop to attract the same customers for consumption.

At the same time, you need to calculate when are peak and off-peak hours, and what customer groups consume during these periods (for example, gender ratio, occupational ratio)"

Error Case Study: Once there was a coffee shop opened in a dining area, but near the shop were some affordable Chinese restaurants and fast-food restaurants. When the surrounding prices were such that a meal could be had for 15-30 yuan, most of these customers would not spend the same price on a cup of coffee.

Storefront Observation

1. Storefront Width

"The shop area doesn't need to be too large, but the width of the storefront must be sufficient. The wider the storefront, the more easily customers will notice it, and the higher the exposure rate of the shop, naturally more people will come in to consume."

2. Natural Lighting

"Good or bad lighting determines the brightness of the storefront and also affects customers' desire to enter the shop. Nowadays, many coffee shops like to adopt a recessed entrance design. In such cases, if the shop's lighting is insufficient and the interior is dim, most customers are unwilling to enter and consume."

Interior Observation

1. Drainage Points

"Water flows from high to low, so attention must be paid to the slope for drainage and the width of drainage pipes. The most important thing for a restaurant is to have good drainage points. Otherwise, after prolonged use, blockages and backflow situations can easily occur. If there are no reasonable drainage points, this storefront may no longer be worth considering."

2. Water Inlet Pipes

"Water inlet pipes are very important! Some storefronts that were previously not restaurants or whose design didn't consider food service, and didn't establish restrooms, may not have water inlet pipes installed.

In such situations, you must pay attention and clearly inquire whether the shop can obtain relevant permits for restaurant operation, and ask whether water inlet pipes can be installed & if water inlet pipes are installed, where clean water needs to be introduced from".

3. Smoke Extraction and Ventilation

"Although some coffee shops don't involve smoke extraction issues, there are still those that provide bread and other foods that require oven heating. Although these foods don't produce much smoke during the heating process, without a good smoke extraction and ventilation system, the odors produced during heating will linger in the shop for a long time, making customers who enter feel uncomfortable. Therefore, besides the entrance, there also needs to be sufficiently large windows."

Image source: Internet

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