Review
“A must-have for all coffee bar owners. Full of useful information.” — Lloyd Johnson, Ricco Coffee Bakery/Roaster”Tom and Marybeth provide great information on all aspects of starting your own specialty coffee operation. Their customer service and marketing ideas are outstanding.” — Nick DiTomaso, Bean Around the WorldA must-have for all coffee bar owners. Full of useful information. — Lloyd Johnson, Ricco Coffee Bakery/RoasterTom and Marybeth provide great information on all aspects of starting your own specialty coffee operation. Their customer service and marketing ideas are outstanding. — Nick DiTomaso, Bean Around the World
Secrets of espresso success Build a winning sales team Create customer loyal (more…)
July 11th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
We are opening a coffee house in 4 months and, needless to say, I have been reading and researching tons of books. Not just on the coffee world, but on insuring a small business as well as other legal insights. This book has been a HUGE resource for our venture. It is an easy read, meaning, it doesn’t numb your mind for countless pages discussing, say, insurance. Let me add that it does talk about insurance, and I thank the authors for that. They explain complicated business talk with clear and consise examples. They also tend to weigh situations against other situations. For example, when drawing up the plans, they give you three ways of doing it (yourself, a draftsman, and an architect) and explain the pros and cons of each. This is consistent throughout the book and they go on to explain why or why not certain things work. They discuss marketing, staffing and the interview process, equipment tips, design layout, decor, etc. This is obviously written from the stand point of people who have been there. They cover all the bases about getting your shop up and running while touching on some potential pitfalls and how to avoid them. And if you get in a bind, they discuss how to get out of it. My highlighter has gotten a workout and I am passing this on to my co-owners to read. I am grateful to have found this book and only wish I had found it sooner to save money on the previous “coffee house” books I have purchased. This book exceeded my expectations as it went beyond the basics and truly is the only book you’ll ever need. I was impressed to see that they covered LLC’s, C corporations, and, S corporations…where people can’t sue and go after your homes, bank accounts, personal assets, etc. Our attorney recomended an LLC for our type of operation and I was relieved to see that this book brought the topic up. Thanks to the authors for being the most complete work out there (in my opinion) on starting your business THE RIGHT WAY from the start.
July 11th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not bad, but could use a broader perspective
This book delivers some very useful information, especially with respect to business plans and the intricacies of incorporating your business, buying insurance, etc…
July 11th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good information; plain language.
Make sure to do plenty of research before embarking on a venture such as owning/running a coffee bar; it’s not a easy as it seems.
This book provides a good start.
July 11th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Start & Run a Coffee Bar is a good starting point. The devil is always in the details. This book does a great job of helping you to think about the details. All those little things that you usually discover as you are in the process of setting things up. Starting with the business plan and working through to expanding and franchising. The book offers sample lists, charts and worksheets that provide ballpark figures to work with. The book talks about the basics of the product itself, coffee and espresso. In short, the book is very thorough in covering the things you will need to think about in starting and running a coffee bar.
If you do exactly as the book says, you’ll end up with a coffee bar that is like a thousand other coffee bars. The overall approach is very formula focused. You will need to bring your own personality and ideas to the table to make your place unique.
While I appreciated the information the book provides, I found the manner and tone annoying. I found the commitment boxes at the end of each chapter sophmoric and condescending. The book’s description of how employees should greet and deal with customers is delivered in a tone that indicates little room for variance. This is the only way to do it. And most of the book is that way. The book addresses a coffee shop with a roaster on site. A lot of the marketing discussion centers around the roaster and custom roast coffee. Great if you’re planning to have that.
At $17, I don’t regret the purchase. The book contains a lot of very useful nuts and bolts information. But I think you will want to read several other books to really understand the coffee business and the coffee customer.
I found the accompanying CD of little value.
July 11th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book
Fantastic information. Everything you need to know presented in a well thought out format.
July 12th, 2009 at 4:00 am
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Good and Practical Book
Hi, I am a Korean who would like to run my own coffee bar in Korea soon. It was very difficult to find really good guide books here in Korea, I mean ,written in Korean.
July 12th, 2009 at 4:34 am
5.0 out of 5 stars
Really Useful
I usually dont write these sorts of reviews but this was just exactly what i was looking for. A great primer on things you need to know and do to open a coffee shop including…
July 12th, 2009 at 7:18 am
4.0 out of 5 stars
Applys to other retail businesses
I bought this book several years ago before I knew what type of business I was going to be in. I’ve now owned a retail store (paint your own pottery) for more than 4 years and…
July 12th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good information–not as complete as I would like
As a designer, I was looking more for input on equipment layout and functionality. This book gave me a good equipment list to discuss and layout with the client.
July 12th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
5.0 out of 5 stars
WOW!
When I ordered this book I was hoping that there would be some information in it that I could pick from it to point me in the right direction on starting a coffee shop.
July 12th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not Worth the money
This book did not really come up with anything that one can not find at the public library or the internet.
July 12th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
5.0 out of 5 stars
GREAT!!!!!
This book was absolutely wonderful! I did not want to put it down. The authors put a lot of thought into what you should know about opening and running your new or already…