How to open a coffee shop in a high school or college?

Opening a school coffee shop is a great way to teach valuable skills students can use throughout their lives. This article is designed to help school districts and faculty to determine the:

·       Viability of establishing a student-run café

·       Direct and indirect benefits for students and the school (and the community!)

·       Startup costs for your café

·       Equipment needed for your coffee shop

·       Business partners you can rely upon, like a coffee roaster and equipment supplier

Student run coffee shops are becoming a popular way to teach real-life skills to students that can linger into their adult lives. Over the last few years, Reverie Coffee Roasters and our partner business, Principal Coffee Equipment Solutions, have helped four schools with some piece of this process. Though we are not there helping with daily operations, we can offer a business owner, coffee roaster and equipment supplier partner’s point-of-view as you consider your own project.

Viability

Student led coffee shops can be a profitable endeavor if you follow sound business acumen and build a business that is not solely there for the purpose of educating. As a business partner to many for-profit and non-profit coffee businesses, one piece of advice that I will continue to offer is that even if your purpose isn’t to make profit, you MUST build a business that is profitable so you can continue to justify its existence. A business, or project, that can stand on its own two legs is one that will endure the kinds of situations that will close a business, such as a district change of leadership, school board decisions/elections, budgeting, and more. It’s hard to want to takeaway something that is working! Also, the message we teach kids about success is much more understandable when you put real life expectations and results behind them. Because running an unsuccessful business after school isn’t anything to strive for.

Benefits

Kids and district employees can greatly benefit from operating a coffee shop inside the school. Project management and communication skills, budgeting and business planning, accounting and reporting, marketing and public relations, leadership and teamwork are just a few skills everyone will learn together. Schools can utilize business and entrepreneurial classes and programs to design and run a business. Creative students can help design the brand and images associated with a fun coffee shop.

Beyond the real-life skills that can be developed by working in or around a coffee shop, there’s real financial opportunities created by successful businesses. If your organization is successful, you may find a new revenue source to fund new programs and projects yet to be discovered, much in the same way a profitable business will. Your community (the students, the school, groups within the school, the neighborhood around the school, other non-profits in town, etc.) can benefit in many ways, as well. A successful program can fund initiatives set by the students. And you could even consider how the business can open up to serve the community at events, and more.

Start Up Costs

Start up costs for a coffee shop can range from a few thousand dollars to several hundred thousand dollars; it’s not cheap! There are many considerations, from the planning and construction to the equipment and training. We’ve written an article HERE about startup costs to help you. But at the end of the day, you will need to consult with several partners to determine the project costs. These people include, but are not limited to, your facilities personnel, architects, engineers, contractors, coffee roaster partner, coffee equipment sales and service partners, product suppliers and more.

A great partner, such as Reverie Coffee Roasters, can help you think through many of the steps without paying a dime. Coffee roasters and café operators have experience in many of the above-mentioned topics and we can point you in the right direction. Our only request is that when you go to make purchasing decision you consider hiring us for your coffee and equipment needs. After all, we’re helping you out and we’d love you to help us out!

Equipment

When it comes to setting up a new coffee shop, one big unknown is often about what equipment is ideal for your operation. Budget is often the driver for decisions. But there are so many options in the universe of equipment, and we want you to have a few ideas for how to make decisions that are affordable to your needs, sized to deliver exactly what you expect, easy enough to operate successfully, and built to last. A great coffee supplier partner can help you make decisions. We’ve taken the time to write a few articles about espresso machines (Types and Size) to help you understand the opportunity.

A side-note about used equipment….if at all possible, you should strongly consider new equipment with a warranty. As an owner/operator of a service company, we thrive on used equipment breaking. And you can’t fully know how good a machine is before you have really had time to work with it. Used equipment that has not undergone extensive observation and repairs by a qualified service technician is a recipe for breakdown and expensive repairs. The cost isn’t just in the work, but also in the lost revenue from downtime. If you have a used piece of equipment in mind, give us a call and we can discuss the option to have our service technician take a look under the hood.

Business Partners

The best part of our job is working with customers, such as your school. It gives our team the opportunity to help educate student customers about the inner workings of a business. Great coffee roasters provide much more than just coffee to be brewed. They are connected to the part of the role students play in developing many skills used in their work. From learning about coffee to be able to educate their customer, to the trade skills they will be trained on, to the businesses acumen they absorb when working with suppliers. It’s all designed for everyone to be successful together, just as you would expect in the real world. In fact, building a business in a school is very real. There’s nothing fake about it!

Great coffee roaster partners offer project knowledge, training opportunities, talks and tours, on- and off-site learning opportunities, and more. Great coffee equipment service technicians help customers pick equipment that fits their needs and their budget. They are responsible for training students how to properly maintain the equipment to allow it to live its fullest life.

You can choose to work with whoever you want. We hope you will choose to work with partners that are committed to helping your project achieve its intended success.

Conclusion

Coffee shops in schools can be a great opportunity for students and faculty to work together and achieve great success to benefit everyone. It takes hard work and planning, setting clearly defined goals, great partners in service, and a commitment to serving the needs of your community. If you are thinking about starting a program, OR, if you already have one in place and want to explore ways to partner and improve it, just send us an email to get started. And for what it’s worth, the same considerations we’ve addressed here apply to colleges as well. We’re here to help you!