Anyone know how to make a Cafe/ Coffee Shop profitable?

[TheGreatWolf14]

So any time I try for fast food or a cafe I lose heavy money as the salary always seems to be 2xs more then the profits with just 2 people working cashier and a cleaner while selling coffee, donuts, croissants, and cupcakes. Please give me pointers as I dont wanna lose this as well.

[Kyle]

move it to a 30 capacity building if it's in a 15 capacity

alternatively just add more item types, you can sell everything in every store, albeit at reduced sale volume

personally i put stuff like salad and wine in coffee shops to stay more on theme instead of clothes or gifts and etc

alternative you can reduce the opening hours depending on the graph in bizman under the 'yesterday' section of it, might have several hours with 0 customers

[jmucchiello]

Only open such a shop if most of the goods it will see are above 50% in the district.

[Flysfree]

i found the key to making profit on the fast food joint is having 4 tills going and i also sell all the fast food items .my biggest struggle is getting the delivery driver to actually deliver,even with the warehouse next door to it hahaha the capacity size is 30 ,even with 4 tills sometimes i jump on a extra one if the queues are big when im in the store

[Kyle]

2 queues should be enough for a 30 capacity but it will probably struggle if you are watching it work cuz placement efficiency and employee movement simulations are slow

variety is definitely key here, fast food and cafe are both high volume sales, cafe suffers a bit because it doesn't have as many primary types though

[Jay Zerosix]

Don't even try until you have a purchase manager at 100% that way you can get the cheapest price for food items with the imports.

[Pr0wn]

Part time cleaner with 2-3h/day is more than enough.
Do not man more tills than required for building capacity.
Check the customer timeline for the previous day to see if you are open in hours with 0 customers, 8-20 works well for me.
Do not overspend on marketing, 500/day should be plenty.
Pick a store with decent foot traffic to start with.
Also check if you have sufficient coffee machines/displays for building capacity. You can bottleneck your customer amount otherwise.

[Make Byzantine Great Again]

shop with more types of goods in a place with more than 15 caps means you need more equipments to maximize your profit.
Take fast food resturant as sample, a fully functional ffr in a 30 cap store, you need two cashier, 2x of equipments for your burger, hotdog, soda, salad, french fries and pizza. If you don't do that, you can gain 100% profit. Sadly that's how this game work.

[Wanted111who]

food variety is needed, shop need to run 24 hours/day. Pizza is a must and is the game changer.
can use import or DY delivery paying 1000 delivery fees once every week and still can make profit even at 75 sq m store. The only drawback is the very expensive equipment for the varieties, especially pizza oven cost over 10k. It is a must have equipment

I started with burger, hot dog, french fries, soda can and salad and am making lost. but as soon as i added pizza, it turn to profits around 2k, then i added coffee it turn more profits and i added cupcakes it turn even more profits, i don't know if it's hidden mechanics or what but the profits is exponential to the foods varieties.

an example of daily sales with and without coffee

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2953059496
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2953059352

Coffee only netting me few hundreds per day around 170 ish, but it bump up the traffics volume and increase the sales of other products and in total net me 600++ dollar a day, just by having coffee

see the days without coffee and with coffee and the customer volume per below, day 265 i ran out of coffee, the customer volume drop below 200 to around 160 a day, lowest 156 customer in day 269, then when i restock coffee customer volume increase back to above 200 again, 212 in day 270

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2953055376

[evea]

before to run a store I always look at marketinsider first into that district. If the product are not demanded it's useless to open that kind of store. Furthermore, if you see a lot of of competitive stores

Then I assure to be at 100% on all
- skill employee at 100% (client service or clean)
- satisfaction employee at 100%
- capacity store = capacity products shelves
- capacity store = cash register capacity and store capacity store max
- eventually add cash register
- intern decoration satisfaction client at 100%
- eventually add marketing to reach the max capacity client/cash register
- Consistency of opening hours (planning) with customer traffic during the day. (is it worth to open early morning or the night if u see there is not client on the yesterday report in bizman insight ?)
- are your employee is expensive ?. employee at 20$/hour full time vs 22$/hour par-time
- fluid and enough minimal restock set for that store with the logistic manager. (what is your dayly sales number for that product if the shelf department is quickly empty?)
- enough stock in warehouse managed by purchase agent. (its expensive to buy at NY wholesaler than any import provider)

[Mullet Disaster]

At least in my game, the coffee shop is the most common competitor shop and every district has 6+ of them. A single product at 100% demand will not make the shop profitable without extra effort , it will take almost all the products to be 75%+ for food items at least. If you don't have good foot traffic in the location , it will be nearly impossible to make it profitable as advertising costs too much for the business.

[FalseGiraffe]

Something I'm noticing is people are giving fast food advice when they are asking about a coffee shop. If you sell fast food in a fast food store, of course you will sell a lot of fast food. If you sell fast food in a coffee shop, not so much. You can't advise the OP to sell pizza because it will turn things around. It may, or it may not.

The mechanic to understand is the primary things for that food type will sell really well and easilly..it's what people are there for...but you can sell other side things. LIke, my gift shop also sells flowers. It doesn't sell as many as my florist. My jewelers also sells wine and cigars. It doesn't sell as many as my liquor stores. I just opened a supermarket that also sells donuts, croissants, cupcakes and hot dogs (think, 7-11). The things not 'on-brand' for the store will take a hit. But if you diversify, make sure you aren't artificially limiting your customers -- you need a certain number of stations in larger stores or EVERYTHING will take a hit.

[TheGreatWolf14]

Okay so I have pretty much done everything you all mentioned. Demand in area is 100% for nearly all the items, customers are pouring in hundreds a day yet I LOSE profit due to salaries as two employees and a part time cleaner was bring me nearly having to pay them $800 a day while profits were $700 or so. building cap is 30 on a foot traffic area of 49. Selling coffee, donuts, cupcakes, soda, and croissants. Its near impossible to make profit and training doesnt seem to help as I have to restock nearly every 2 days so stock also takes away profit with the total loss a day being -$300 to -$400 a day.

[Rabob]

Originally posted by TheGreatWolf14:

Okay so I have pretty much done everything you all mentioned. Demand in area is 100% for nearly all the items, customers are pouring in hundreds a day yet I LOSE profit due to salaries as two employees and a part time cleaner was bring me nearly having to pay them $800 a day while profits were $700 or so. building cap is 30 on a foot traffic area of 49. Selling coffee, donuts, cupcakes, soda, and croissants. Its near impossible to make profit and training doesnt seem to help as I have to restock nearly every 2 days so stock also takes away profit with the total loss a day being -$300 to -$400 a day.

Have you raised the prices of the products you are selling?

[TheGreatWolf14]

Originally posted by Rabob:

Originally posted by TheGreatWolf14:

Okay so I have pretty much done everything you all mentioned. Demand in area is 100% for nearly all the items, customers are pouring in hundreds a day yet I LOSE profit due to salaries as two employees and a part time cleaner was bring me nearly having to pay them $800 a day while profits were $700 or so. building cap is 30 on a foot traffic area of 49. Selling coffee, donuts, cupcakes, soda, and croissants. Its near impossible to make profit and training doesnt seem to help as I have to restock nearly every 2 days so stock also takes away profit with the total loss a day being -$300 to -$400 a day.

Have you raised the prices of the products you are selling?

yes and no. if I raise above a dollar barely any customers buy so most times its default prices.

[Pr0wn]

If you post a screenshot of your econoview and bizman dashboard we might be able to see what is going on.
Coffee shop is not super profitable as a business, it’s easy to be in the red