Basics for a new generation coffee business

The wife and I have been just plugging at an idea for a coffee kiosk business.  We have a plan in our head which we intend on putting on paper, but right now it is just in the air.  All we would be doing is sucking off of $B top.  We would be in a high foot traffic educational area and we would keep the menu as simple as possible.  A very, very constricted menu such as a espresso, Latte, cappuccino, with the usual soy and such variations and finally the drip/French press via only two single origins.  Nothing fancy and nothing to argue about.  It is a kiosk and the point is the student doesn’t have to drive four miles off campus between a set of classes to go to $B.  The concept further states that we “are not $B and thus we are different.”  Two flavors, which I don’t even want to offer, but we feel like there is some necessity for it, especially at first.  Hopefully, we will be able to offer at least two tables for chair seating and there is some benches all around this large enclosed rotunda area that we have our eyes upon; Thus we hope we can offer the espresso “for here” only.

Jim Hoffman has some spectacular reading going on over at his blog that, in his words, covers “quite a broad topic within coffee, that covers not only elements of brewing but sales, consumption, successes and failures and the challenges that lie ahead for anyone in the industry.”

The first topic is Trust, then Pricing, and finally Expectations.

I would have to say this is required reading, even for a customer.  I know that Miss Nikki and myself will be studying this short, but very helpful primer.

Furthering the NYC Debate: Escape from NYC

Thanks to Barista Mag

I guess we will have to wait and see…..

Barista Mag titled their article “Escape to New York.”  Me personally, I hope their right, but I think the “from” is probably going to be more accurate.

A Roasting Stampede Headed Towards NYC

EDIT: This post is “in response,” so to speak, to this NYT article.  I knew I had forgotten something…

Stampede: A stampede is an act of mass impulse among herd animals or a crowd of people in which the herd (or crowd) collectively begins running with no clear direction or purpose.

Wikipedia. (2008). Stampede: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Retrieved August 13,2008, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stampede.    (Kinda crazy, I have been reading about bibliography citations lately).

Trust me.  I am for properly sourced, quality, fresh roasted coffee like the next guy.  For crying out loud, I have misjudged my coffee supplies and I ran out today; Thus I am sitting here drinking a press pot of Starbucks Ethiopian Sidamo purchased yesterday from a $B chain store.  I feel like I could have prepared some Folgers and received the same results.  (BTW, off topic, but anybody follow that link?  Notice the ™ on the coffee name?  I wonder what could be going on with that?  Is it Starbuck’s Trade Mark or Ethiopia’s?)

So, we are all for fantastic coffee, right?  With the following names now throwing their hat into the roasting ring in N.Y.C, wouldn’t seem almost like a stampede; Doesn’t it almost seem to be over-saturation?  (Gush, I said over-saturation and NYC in the same sentence). Stumptown, Counter Culture Coffee, Ecco, Intelligentsia, Blue Bottle Coffee Company, Brownstone Beans, Café Grumpy, Abraço Espresso, and finally Ken Nye, owner of Ninth Street Espresso all wanting to roast in NYC and within the next 12 months.

Every single one mentioned talked about “signing leases” and moving right in to a facility.  Has anybody heard the portafilter podcast with Ken Nye of Ninth Street talking about just how hard it is to get a lease under $125 a square FOOT!  I must say that is the best podcast I have ever heard in my life, on any topic, and I have replayed it probably six times.  If I recall correctly, he made the comment “…most people from other towns come here and look around and scout it out and put a calculator to it and just go home.”  (Not a direct quote, but that was close).  I know I haven’t started a single coffee shop, and I haven’t even been to a coffee shop in N.Y.C.  Something I have had on a my “bucket list” for a couple years now.   Amazingly I was in Newark, NJ (10 miles from any coffee house in the City) probably 25 times from January to July this year and I couldn’t get across the Hudson to do accomplish the mission.  After he made those remarks, Ken also was asked “So, what is it going to take for more shops to open in New York City?”  And Ken came back with “A realestate collapse.”  I am telling you Ken is “the man” when it comes to the coffee business, IMHO. He is my A-Rod!  I have a Ninth Street Coffee Logo as my desktop image on my laptop.  He is just “doing the business” like I would want to do  the business.  No syrups, no 20 oz (or 16s either), no take out espresso, no…, no…., no…..  Just, NO!  They are the real Coffee Nazi’s of NYC and probably the East Coast.

So, was there a “realestate collapse” in NYC?  I don’t know, I imagine the nationwide realestate collapse, which has generally speaking been atrributed to family homes, isn’t scratching NYC.

Finally, my question is this: I know NYC is HURGE!  But, is there enough specialty coffee houses (don’t read here some crappy place that fills the doser up in the morning and doses out of it until it is empty!) in NYC to justify that many roasters?  Right now, I think I can say “no.”  Maybe they know something I don’t.  They probably do!