Today’s tip for starting up a successful cafe business: choose the right building. This is one area in which I’m happy to say that I was wise enough to take my own advice. I refused to settle for anything less (or more) than what I had in mind, and I haven’t once regretted sticking to my guns.
Not only is Cafe Mint perfectly located for our needs, it also has an unbeatable outlook. The icing on the cake (as if there wasn’t enough of that going on) is large windows appointed to capture the vista to perfection. These are the kind of features that many cafe owners overlook when looking to buy a property to use as their premises, instead focusing on things like structural integrity and cost effectiveness. Of course, those things are important too, but at the end of the day they’re not going to get discerning customers through the door, are they?
I understand that sometimes you have to settle, but there are steps you can take to limit how much you have to do that. For example, you can recruit a buyers’ property agent. Melbourne has people who do this professionally – they’re kind of like real estate agents but for buyers. They can help you find what you’re actually looking for, and inform you as to whether the price is right. We wouldn’t have been able to get this site without our buyers’ agent, as it wasn’t on the public market. We’d literally never have known about it, let alone have been able to access to the sale.
Anyway, my point is that it’s worth going after what you want when it comes to finding a site for your cafe. Don’t settle for cramped space facing into a parking lot in flat suburbia, unless that’s the vibe you’re going for. Doing that is only going to end in a failed operation and having to start over. And if you’ve ever tried constructing a choc-chilli croquembouche on a humid day, you’ll know how dispiriting that can be.