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Permalink Reply by Mike McGinness on October 7, 2011 at 4:54pm

Will there be adequate space for the roaster, greens storage and bagging without taking away from current customer seating needs? You do not want to store greens at a different location from roasting, trust me, bean there done that.

 

How accessible will bags-o-greens delivery be at coffeehouse location.

 

Will there be potential for customer interaction with and hence distracting the person doing the roasting? And hence potential for destroyed roast batches. Ok, can destroy a roast without being distracted, but the potential is much higher.

 

Will having the roaster at the coffeehouse locaton increase bean sales? Maybe yes maybe no. We have two locations in Vancouver, WA. One downtown the other in a semi-industrial area were we roast and also have retail coffeehouse operations. Downtown sold $150 more (~10% more) in retail beans than the Roastery last month. Of course downtown with higher density of people also doing about 3 to 4x the bev count of the Roastery coffeehouse. So on a bev to bean ratio basis the Roastery sold more bags-o-beans but overall downtown more beans and way more bevs. What does that mean for your situation? Don't have a clue!

 

All aspects of coffee are messy. Roasting especially so! Be prepared to do a lot more dusting at your coffeehouse.

 

Will the noise and commotion of staging roasts, roasting and bagging detract from your current coffeehouse ambience? Or would it add to it in a positive we mean business see us go at it way? Every situation is different!

 

Some maybe many people do get off seeing that "Big Grinder" in action for their first time. Yeah, been asked if it was a coffee grinder more than once! Unfortunately I have to be careful how I laugh so I don't offend every time it happens. :) What does this have to do with your questions, probably nothing, just thought I'd share! But it's not as big a deal as it once was with places like Costco installing Giant roasters making most of ours look dinky in comparison. In fact it can make our job harder explaining why our higher quality beans cost more. Veering off subject me thinks...

 

And have some bagging to do and roaster and related chaff float to vac and espresso machine and grinders to clean etc. so outta here.

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Permalink Reply by nick placakis on October 8, 2011 at 6:38am

Mike,

 

Thanks for the input. All valid concerns, some of which I did not pay much attention to.

Our shop is in a touris resort area so I think the novel of roasting in front of customers will increase sales and create a buzz, much like the way the fudge shop across the street does. Delivery should not be a problem, large cysco food trucks deliver to some of the other tenants here and use the ramps as access. Fortunately we have double wide open doors to get into the shop.

 

Didn't think about the dusting. I plan on lining up the sacks of coffee around the roaster as a barrier to the roaster so customers don't actually get within touching distance, which should also make for nice props asthetically. We only have 3 indoor tables so it wouldn't get in the way of that.

 

Great feedback and things to think about. Much appreciated.

 

Nick

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