The location of the premises will be in a quiet urban area of a big city e.g. Manchester, London, New York, etc. The staff would be wearing simple shirts/blouses with a small logo of the café on the left hand side of the shirt.
My aims and objectives for this café are to: -
- Break-even within 6months of starting up
- Have a turnover of 20% within a year and ½ of breaking-even
- Have at least 50 customers per day at the end of 4months
- Introduce a membership system within 3months
- Open a second Café after two years
The Costa Story
In 1971, Italian brothers Sergio and Bruno Costa started a wholesale operation supplying roasted coffee to caterers and specialist Italian coffee shops. Drawing on their Italian background and Sergio's experience of blending and roasting coffee in Parma, the brothers established Costa's unique roasting style. Beans were slow roasted at reduced temperatures to produce a fuller, less bitter flavour and a specially developed espresso blend was created of six parts arabica and one part robusta to create Costa's unique taste. Both the roasting process and their special blend Mocha Italia are mainstays of the Costa business today.
The Costa brothers opened the first Costa store in London in 1978 and growth expanded at the rate of two stores per year with the help of their family and friends in the business. In 1988, the roasting operation moved to Old Paradise Street in Lambeth, London, where the roaster and green beans (those waiting to be roasted) are stored.
Developments such as the new roaster were crucial to Costa. With huge growth over the 1990's the company had increased to 186 stores by 1999 and in 2000, 3.7 million cups of coffee were sold each week.
Costa is now the leading UK branded coffee shop with over 300 stores and host units in a number of complementary retail outlets, including selected Ottakers and Waterstones bookstores, WHSmith and Homebase stores, Marriott Hotels and Middlesex Hospital. Most recently Costa has opened coffee bars inside select branches of Abbey National to bring you the first coffee shop in a bank.
Facts and Figures today
1. Costa is the largest chain of branded coffee shops in the UK with over 300 outlets
2. Costa coffee makes the best quality coffee because:
- All Costa coffee beans are slow roasted for 22 minutes to ensure a smoother flavour than quick roasting, which can produce a bitter taste
- Costa has 30 years Italian heritage perfecting the art of coffee making
- Costa source and buy their own beans from all over the world
3. Costa produces the best blends of coffee using 6 different parts arabica beans and 1 part robusta.
4. At Costa, we use our own specialist Baristas in all of our stores, who are trained the Italian way at our dedicated roastery.
5. Costa is committed to producing quality coffee and has just invested over £1million on a new roaster at the Lambeth roastery.
6. Costa's own Italian accredited Master Roaster, currently oversees the roasting of approximately 35 tonnes of coffee per week. With the new roaster, capacity will nearly double to 65 tonnes per week.
7. Costa coffee is made by hand, rather than by the automated coffee machines used in some other chains.
8. Costa offers customers a Fairtrade coffee option, which can be requested for any of our coffees. In addition to this all the traditional and Earl Grey teas are from Teadirect. This is offered through the partnership with Cafédirect.
9. Examples of alternative locations and Costa concessions include stores at the London Eye, Middlesex Hospital, the BBC at Shepherds Bush and Abbey National.
Like Costa I will be starting as a very small business and that I am set out to be unique rather than just following the ideas of Costa. Whereas they are weak I am intending to exploit it and use it to my advantage. As I have been into a few of the Costa Café’s myself, I am able to see their disadvantages and hopefully benefit from this.
I have noticed that when I do enter a Costa Café people seem to be sitting very uncomfortably and the seats are usually metal and look very unwelcoming. My theory is that if the furniture is relaxed and you can just chill out in them then people are more likely to stay. Also, hopefully they will return and become consistent customers. This could lead to a lot more customers because of ‘Word of Mouth’ promotion
My competition will be local restaurants and other cafe’s but I plan to go to an area where there are very few café’s are known for good quality and service. This will be in the larger cities as I mentioned earlier. I want to create a café that everyone has heard of and that everyone has been to and still purchases coffee, other beverages and small snacks at.
My aims and objectives are part of this process and with any luck I should be able to achieve them at the end of my first two years. Other than that though I would hope to become known, not just for my coffee, but also for my level of good service and satisfaction.
The idea membership I spoke about earlier, I find an essential part of my café. This membership is my idea of uniqueness in a café. I have looked at other café’s an restaurant and found that none of them have introduced a membership system. When a customer has a membership card he or she will be able to get points on their card which will give them discount on items from the café, holiday destinations (within the country, not including flights) and other stores around the globe. Hopefully giving the customers this option will bring them back to my café and not to my competitors.
