HOW TO CREATE AN AMAZING LITTLE RESTAURANT WITH HEART --
AND MAKE TEN TIMES THE INCOME that you make now.
The TRICKS THAT WILL MAKE YOUR CAFE A HIP, TRENDY HANG-OUT!
The
idea with a café is to have it stand out. You want
it to have a look that creates an instant upgrade to the
entire neighborhood, so that your biz leads the way. You want the cafe to have
multiple things happening that excite. Ambiance, Exotica, Extra entertaining
things happening, Music, great food of course, but maybe special event foods
for sale in take home packages. These ideas represent extra earnings for you,
the owner. Some are just gifts for your guests but they make your place special
as they're rarely given by the snooty, uptown cafes. LOCATION: Find an area
that is becoming gentrified where there are old, seedy buildings. You want the
charm that old buildings have. You are going to utilize the roccoco design
elements of these old, fixer upper store fronts. You may even have to adorn the
windows above your shop to give the building flavor. Go through photos of
Europe to find something similar to your building. Note how window boxes,
shutters, electric colors, painted panels, awnings and posted menus give a
plain building old world charm. Be sure to discuss these proposed changes with
the landlord before you sign a lease. He may not go for it. It will help to
have a colored design schemata to show him. Or you can use the graphics in this
article.(BTW, these windows are found at
demolition houses that sell old sinks, doors, windows, and so cheap you can’t
believe it. The electric blue paint is a custom mix of the 5$ a gallon “BENT
SHELF” at Home Depot. They remainder everything custom mixed. Use exterior oil
enamels. You can never predict what colors you can find so go regularly until
you collect a lot of blues, some white or it looks too blackish.)
Now, what distinguishes your cafe
from others. What makes people worship your charm and usefulness to them? May
we suggest:
1.) A TASTING MENU. Small price, sample serving sizes, they get appetizer, entree and dessert. A Tasting menu price would be $4.00 to $6.00 for all three --appetizer, entree and dessert, and throw in a small salad. This encourages lower income folk to come in droves on slow nights! Find your slow nights. Then make Tasting Menu on those nights only!
2.) COMMUNAL TABLE for single guests without reservations. They do this one in Brasseries all over France. If the grumpy French can tolerate it, Americans can! Or are French more xenophobic than US? I am certain they are not!
3.) NO DARN CORKAGE FEES! Let your guests can bring their own wine. Give them Styrofoam or Paper cups however as goblet/glass breakage and washing crystal would be too costly for this freebie privilege.Put a sign up, coffee can, ‘donations for our wine license.’
4.) ONLINE RECIPES for all entrees. Plus cooking lessons by email so they can duplicate your entrees. The only way to fight their not coming back once they can make it for a buck at their house, is to change entrees a whole lot. So your cafe becomes a cooking school. It's a good thing.
5.) Have you Looked in Our Bakery? Offer fine pastries, freshly baked breads, pies, cakes and condiments that are not only the staples of the house but which can be BOUGHT by the pound. Like Homemade cheese cakes, pastries, the JAMs that you serve with the breakfast menu, available for clients. To do that you need unusual flavors. Best way to zap jam is add lemon rind and juice to all the fruits. Really makes them interesting! Or FRUIT JAM, MARMALADE. My galpal Edythe gets 8$ a jar. Her hybird mixes STUN! KIWI fruit with lemon peel, a kiwi marmalade. Or do it with sugared lemon peels in it. WOW! Her Kumquat MARMALADE makes you understand why those trees exist! Frankly I never understood it before I tasted her Kumquat jam. If you are in a temperate zone, Grow some of these small lustily-bearing trees! GUAVAS are the most extraordinary fruit, easy to grow in zones 8, 9, 10. Find guava in the supermarket, pull seeds out. That's how the plant replicates, not cuttings. Again, tropical so you'd better have a green house! How about Pear chutney served with all your curries like the CAFE IVY does in L.A. Or do coriander basil pesto, MULBERRY MARMALADE (add plenty of citrus zest and lemon juice to give it the acidity mulberries lack!). Ditto with raspberries, each 12 oz of fruit has one lemon and all its rind, done in marmalade like strips, but none of the white part of skin! And for vanilla ice cream the fab, unique Chocolate fudge sauce. Sell all your condiments so people have to come in to load up! And stay for dinner!
6.) A seriously THICK Theme restaurant gimmick. For a family restaurant, a massively ornate DECOR that will enchant the children. Create a fairytale world with murals, like Lord of the Rings all around the booths. Or do a FOREST theme, a friendly FROG character with a real name that's cute, like FARLEY THE FROG, and he's everywhere, on the menu, painted on the walls with rabbit companions; give away Frog games, or little toy Rabbits. Get those INDONESIAN painted frogs and palm trees, made of light woods, put them all around the room. Last, have your table servers wear costumes, speak with accents, keep a character going. A little theatre.
For adults, something lush and romantic like PANGEA, or The Lost Continent of Mu or ATLANTIS theme, PANGEA.. something exotic with Martin Denny type music. (50's, with birds tweeting in BG) Foods carry out the theme: Pangea has Pacific Island foods, seafood..... Mexican and Indonesian food. The theme is carried out in murals, lighting. Also via the music and the waiter's costumes. Sarongs! Leis! ELECTRIFIED PUFFER FISH! HANGING in the NETS. Ladies get a gardenia corsage. Little Shirley Temple Drinks with gardenias and umbrellas in them! These perks give clients the REAL URGE to come eat at your place.
7.) Boutique and or Gallery. If you have space, find twenty local artisans, and have them share the rent for this 'space' and fill it with stuff. Windwhackers, Sweaters, Pillows, paintings, moccasins.You get 40% off the top. Or if you're an artist and have time, it can be your stuff. Paintings can hang in the dining rooms ditto decor pieces.
8.) Singles night. You do this in only one of your several rooms, or in the patio not the whole cafe, as you can't lock out regulars. Name tags indicate the guest has paid to be in the singles party. One night a month, it's a 10$ fee for the singles party and the food is included. (The bar is not free so you make extra there.) The guests get formal introductions made by the singles hostess, so you need an 'hostess' to move around, socialize, and encourage introductions and to make and run a phone tree to remind those who left their fone, fax or email in the guest book, that there's a new party.
9) Juke Box. You need a great selection of music stacked inside it. Enya, Jai Utal, New Age beautiful spiritual songs and some good old fashioned romantic dance music. These Juke boxes make you an extra income in silver quarters! They provide music when there are party groups there, dancing. A little bit of country but no heavy metal need apply!
9.) FARM FRESH, MULTIPLE YUMMIES- Get farmers in rural areas to make wine, grow tilapia fish, sell you freshly made olives, open range eggs, raw honey, organic vegies. Eggplants by the dozen. Once guests know you have produce available, folks will say 'what vegies you got now?' and you say 'select it, we'll cook it,' that kind of thing. They can buy a few pounds raw and carry organic produce home, too. End of the night, if you're loaded with string beans, you can offer a 'deal' .89c a lb beans at .49c. Bet you sell out! Read FOOD CO-OP!
10)
AMERICAN IDOL, STAR SEARCH - Friday
& Saturday nites, (most likely to be ‘date nites’,) have sound equipment, a
mike and a DJ to run the electronics. Offer AMERICAN IDOL type singing
contests. Opera, Pop, Ballads, Rock. The contestants compete for a prize of a
dinner for two. You get free entertainment all night long for that price.Thhis
will be a big draw for crowds as each contestant loads audience with his family
and friends.
A
user friendly cafe will endear itself to the community, become a meeting place
for locals and last beyond the usual few years lifespan of a cafe that can only
intrigue the mind, tickle the fancy and do it for a hundred years!
100 is nothing. I am 200 years
old! I have
roaches who can conjugate
French verbs!