Some of you may be familiar with this old franchise, but you may not be aware that the franchise has kicked the bucket. But they where kind enough to let any of the remainder shops to stay open and keep the name. We purchased the name right to,"Daily Grind", and bought the old shop from a good friend. We ran it from 2011-2013 at its old location. We all agreed it was a lousy location...and the previous sales from other owners numbers wheren't lying. But we learned the business there. We got to start from nothing, and have a good reputation by the end of the second year and sales up 45%.

We saw a better location and went for it. With our good reputation already built in our community, we have been very successful in only a few months in the slowest time of the year for coffee shops and retailers alike. I can't wait to see what the fall and winter brings us! We have 3-4 coffee suppliers. 2 of them are no farther than an hour away and personally deliver. Our coffee is not all certified organic or fair trade, but we try to get them where they don't suffer in quality and pricing. But we have excellent relationships with our roasters. Our community is an interesting mixture of business and rustic. It is absolutely impossible to profile my customer basis, because we just get all kinds. That is partially because we have a rather decent lunch menu. I will say that approximately 65% of our business is from women between the ages of 35 and 60. This is only being consistent with the history of coffee shops. I plan on designing a line of consumables targeting women and that age group. I am also working on building a program to attract more high school kids.

We use tea wave smoothie purée's and maya chai mix. We don't have any from scratch recipes which is something I'd like to improve on. And, there is only one other cafe in town to compete with, other than McCafe. We have no market saturation. Our town is bursting with untapped potential for ambitious minds. We have an automatic orange juicer, like one you might see in Spain. Other than the fresh juice, we sell an orange cream sickle smoothie with vanilla and non-dairy, or we use vanilla freeze. It's massively boosted our juice sales, and gives me hope of paying off the Zumex in 2 years as opposed too 5.

My motto and design for our created product are the three T's. temperature, taste, and texture. All of these must be tuned in, or it isn't acceptable and cannot be sold. There is a fourth point, aesthetics. Essentially, that is the cherry on top that makes the experiences that much better. We don't focus on fancy latte art...although it is something we want to do more of. That being said, if the texture of the drink doesn't look right, I know it's lacking and isn't really good quality. If the temperature is right, then the flavor of the milk will be properly tapped into. It also means you don't have to wait ten minutes for your drink to cool down before your first sip. If the temperature is right, it will have better texture. It will have the right aroma. Temperature is so important. It makes your mouth feel good. In the order of receiving your drink, you first see, then smell. Then feel, quickly followed by taste, and texture. Then there is a linger of the after effect. If all those points are accurately tuned in and accurately balanced, that first sip can be a day changer.

All these points also apply to my vision for our food, cold drinks, atmosphere of our facility emphasizing on the most prevailing points that best fit the application.

And quality is the best marketing here.