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Evening Hours at a Bakery
MattPathetic
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I work for an ever expanding bread bakery that features a fine line of freshly baked breads, pastries along with exceptional coffee and tea. The store has only been open for about 8 months, but it's growth and success in this time has really defied the current economical situation.
Recently, it has been decided that we'd stay open until 9pm at night with a greater focus on coffee and desert type pastries. I have been promoted to a night manager position and it falls on me to organize events and such to help draw in customers during the night.
I'm just not sure what kind of things might actually help entice customers to come in during these hours.
The ideas of coffee and tea tastings and live music have been bandied about. Anyone here have any ideas I can implement into turning the bakery's evening hours into less of a ghost town?
Recently, it has been decided that we'd stay open until 9pm at night with a greater focus on coffee and desert type pastries. I have been promoted to a night manager position and it falls on me to organize events and such to help draw in customers during the night.
I'm just not sure what kind of things might actually help entice customers to come in during these hours.
The ideas of coffee and tea tastings and live music have been bandied about. Anyone here have any ideas I can implement into turning the bakery's evening hours into less of a ghost town?
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- book launches/signings by local people
- poetry/reading evenings
- art exhibitions by local people
Do you have wireless internet access? that tends to draw people in.
Coffee preparation evenings - stop drinking instant at home, buy our grinder and beans and use them like such - it's easy Mr Consumer.
1. Don't be tied to the new time. Lots of people like to go out after dinner and see live music, and that is often 9-midnight. Even relaxed places like coffee houses. While you're starting out with the new time, push to go later when you have events so you're not rushing people out the door. Since it's new you should be fine with minimal staffing, to keep costs down. It would be a good opportunity for selling end-of-day baked goods for clearance prices, as well.
2. Set specific dates for events, and make sure people can actually attend. I'll give you two stories for local businesses:
-- One coffee house was nearby a local highrise populated by med students. It was always packed full of people, because they wanted to get out of their apartment and use the free wifi of the place. They would crowd into the place, buy a coffee or two, and sit there for hours. The store tried to have some local events, readings, shows, and they posted them to an online calendar. But it turns out that people hated to go because when they went to see live music by their friends, there was nowhere to sit and most of the "audience" didn't want live music. The coffee shop was stuck with clientele that they didn't want, essentially. Since they didn't do food there was no reason to go late because if you wanted to sit down with coffee, you couldn't (no seats).
-- Another restaurant is a pizza place by an art college. To attract a later crowd, they offered free music every night. While they were getting started, anyone could sign up to play, although they set volume limits. They'd do two sets most nights, a "dinner band" that was quieter or acoustic, and then a more upbeat band for 9-12 or so. Because there's *always* live music, people don't worry so much about showing up on the right day, and it's been a huge success. Since they're a restaurant people would sit for about an hour or so and inevitably catch some music, too, which makes the place a lot of fun.
The point of both stories is that when you have a local band, you a) need to realize that the best thing about local bands is that their friends will come see them perform and b) they need to be at a volume that won't alienate other patrons. If there's singing, they can't be interrupting actual conversation that people are having, so you'd need to be up front with the bands about volume. But you can have solo artists and duos as well. I suggest not doing any sort of dance-oriented bands/groups.
3) what's the local competition like? Are there starbucks nearby? If so, do your homework -- go in there one evening (with a book or laptop) and spend about 2 hours scoping it out. See if they have any events, what their closing hours are. How busy are they? What kind of people are in there?
One local starbucks here closes at 7 (!!) because they're in a residential area, and the other shops on the block all close at 7 as well (even the grocery store). The starbucks by the college campus is open until 9:30 (and could probably go later).
4) stay true to what you know. You're a bakery with great coffee. Don't try to sell pizzas. Don't turn into a dinner restaurant. Your evening products should reflect the ethos of what your business is -- just at a later hour. If you sell sandwiches, like a Panera-type thing, make them small, like hors d'oeuvres, and sell them for cheap as a snack for people. For now you don't want to completely change the feel of the place to a formal sit-down restaurant, but rather you want to entice people to come hang out in the evening. Offer smaller or dessert-style coffees and teas, snack-style foods/breads, and so on. People in the morning will buy, for example, a big bagel and slather it with cream cheese. In the evening they might eat a small scone -- giant pastries will look too heavy. Smaller items can also be sold for less, and at the end of the day people's wallets are going to be lighter, especially if they bought any food out during the day. Being a cheap, fun place for people to go will attract people and, more importantly, still encourage them to spend money at the bakery.
But a lot of all of this depends on the local population. A shop like this in Ann Arbor will have an easier time compared to Colorado Springs.
Is getting a liquor license an option? You don't have to have a full-fledged bar (you can if you want - there are a couple successful coffee bar/evening bar establishments in my area), but Irish Coffee and that sort of alcoholic coffee drinks are a nice option to set yourself apart.
Also, student discount! Even a small one helps attract college kids and the like. Make sure it's very obvious that it exists. A lot of places around town here have discounts but don't tell people. Which seems to defeat the purpose to me.
What other types of attractions are around you? Is there a movie theater, etc.?
A lot of good business advice here. Some other things; make sure the area is well-lit, at least outside your doors, I assume (?) the shop owner has talked to the city and police to get permission and made them aware they'll be open, which may not be big deal if other things around you are late nighters too.
As for events, doing different coffee tastings/flights might be fun, like an 'African Flight,' or a 'Two Sweet' combo with a light coffee and a pastry. Is your stuff roasted in-house, or roasted local?
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I don't really think there's much "different" you could do to. Those are the hours places like Starbucks and Peets Coffee keep and you wont see bands or book signings at them during the hours you're talking about.
Your target audience at 6-9pm is going to be the same people it was at 10-6pm. People who want coffee and a place to chill between work and home, or someplace to relax with friends or surf the internet. To get a real "night crowd" you'd have to be open til at least midnight. Keep it well lit, have decent outside benches or something and maybe play some more modern music if you don't already. You could try running some sort of pastry and coffee deal for a bit, time it so that hot french rolls or sticky buns or scones come out of the oven around 730-800 and have something advertising the fact.
The key to a great Coffee house\Bakery is that people feel like it's there home away from home. Starbucks refers to themselves as the "Third place" because they want customers to feel like it's an alternate from work and home they can go to anytime. If customers want to come in a little later on the weekend, roll with it. Obviously you don't have to stay up till 4 in the morning to acommadate some drunks, but don't be afraid to stay fluid.
This is a simple fix, charge for the Wifi. No free wifi, they'll go elsewhere. Coffee, especialy drip coffee, doesn't have a great profit margin to it. The key is to bring in people who want to buy pasties and such.
Remember, if you're going to bring in live music, try to think along the lines of singer songwritter. The local hardcore band might have a great following, but chances are they're gonna want to take it up to 11.
This is very important to remember, don't try to rock the boat too hard. And don't just seek out starbucks and caribou, look at other restraunts and even small venues to see what they're doing right and what they're doing wrong.
No greater advice can be given then this. The problem starbucks had is when they tried to sell breakfast sandwiches and stuff like that. If you make really good coffee and cakes, stick to that! Don't feel the need to reinvent the wheel.
Aside from what Eggy talked about, some new things to try would be to come up with your own roast of coffee. I had a supervisor at Starbucks who also roasted and blended his own coffee and customers loved trying it out. Also try to get into Latte art, as customers LOVE that and it's a fun way to bring in new blood without having to spend any extra money.
Don't worry about pushing grinders and stuff like that. The trick is if they want to sell whole bean coffee, let them know you can grind it for them, using the perfect grind. This keeps them coming in where they're more likely to buy a cake or a cup of joe.
Finaly, something that was a HUGE hit with the local crowd at my store was to host a coffee workshop. Talk about the different blends of coffee, how it's grown, picked, and roasted, maybe go into some of the history of it. Then go into the science of brewing it, why the grind and quality of water matters as much as the quality of the beans. Then press a cup of your favorite blend and teach people the correct way to taste coffee (taking time to smell the aroma of the coffee, then slurping it up so it spreads evenly across your palate). Talk about the individual taste each coffee has, if it's sweet or bitter. Maybe it has notes of chocolate or a nutty taste to it. Optionaly, you might want to press some Foldiers or Maxwell house so they can taste the difference between good beans and bad beans.
Really, What is the deal with that. I mean I like cupcakes as much as the next guy, but why are they the "next big thing" (or I guess, the last "next big thing")
To the OP, the book signing, poetry reading, live local bands (there was a trio of jazz guys from the local college around here, that were pretty killer)
I also like the idea of "workshops" like, how to brew our coffee, and "making a shot of espresso".
Hell, Uggs and high fades were trendy for awhile. No one knows why.
I tried one from the premier bakery. I thought it was outright disgusting: it was so sweet the one bite I had nearly came back up.
But that's neither here nor there.
Actually, this is bad. People will buy one cup of coffee and then sit on it forever. It's fine when it's one or two people doing this, but large groups? No. They'll take up all the seating and you'll lose business. This really only works in bars where people are constantly refreshing their beverage.
Also, if you do decide on music, do NOT do open mic. Nothing scares away customers more than some Jesus awful singer songwriter wailing away. If you want to do music, have something like a jazz trio or something along those lines.
Here you go: add burlesque to your shop. It's win-win!
Cupcakes: Cupcakes were trendy because they are single-serving cakes, and you could do fancy frosting/cake things with them. Cupcakes are also not something you can generally buy in stores. And they "caught on" because there's a fantastic profit margin on cupcakes, so the shops that started up could afford to be in trendy locations. But it's a pretty shitty business model for long-term sustainability -- you don't have to look any further than Krispy Kreme to see that just selling a super-sugary premium pastry is not an instant win.
Open mic: Open mic means "We can't actually book performances effectively, so we're just going to leave this open to whoever shows up." You should always vet any performances you have, unless you're running an anarcho-communist coffee shop (we have one of those in Baltimore, mind). Open mic is the lazy way out. Require your potential performers to get a hold of you ahead of time; if you want to simulate an open mic, you can just do mini sets where each person plays 3-4 songs.
Maybe look into local meetup clubs? Maybe you can invite them to have their gatherings there?
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