Do you know how many Coffee Shops and roasters available in just the United States alone? According to the 2015 report by the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), there were 31,490 of them, actually not that many for the size of its landscape and being as the largest coffee drinking country globally.
And upon another 2015 report revealed by SCAA, some key financial and operating data for roasters were very impressive and surprised me a lot. Most of the respondents in this report operated more than 8 years with ~4 total employees, 2 employees of them were roasters with more than 5 years experience. Their gross profit was ~51.2% and profit margin before tax was ~6.9%. Those findings have broken all my previous assumption that roasters might not be as profitable as other retail. But indeed, I was wrong.
Whilst picking my brain in my Project "C" pitch deck, decided to take a break and drive to the West Side for a peek. Read about Bar Nine for a while, but never got a chance to pay a visit. So, here I was.
BAR NINE | Culver City, CA
Products Score: 80 Service Score: 80 Store Score: 85
Final {verdict}: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5
Located off the National Blvd in the Culver City, LA. In the alley, there is a mix of commercial and residential areas. The city is being known for hosting a lot of movie studio and art production firms; therefore, you could immediately feel the artistic vibe once you dived in.
Before moving forward to talk about their retail space, got to bring to your attention abt their "Powered by Shopify" web design. The User Interface design is simple but elegantly presents all essential information to their targeted customers. Check it out.
Obviously, their space was remodeled from a warehouse with some history. But, that's a great idea to save operating cost and to provide a very spacey area to customers and their roasting operation.
Love their contemporary interior design. Daylight sheds in well from the front door reconstructed from a garage slider door and the rooftop. Cleverly make a leverage of its resources. What caught my eyes right out was the gigantic roasting machine with a huge chimney sticking to the roof exhausting the smoke generated from the roasting process. At the back, it's their office space, very in vogue. During this visit, my only dilemma and complaint is the parking space. Even though it's a modified warehouse, assembly there should be some parking space designed for customers but wasn't any. And the alley fully parked with cars from the residence and nearby workers. Made a few circles before finding one spot across their shop.
Didn't get any chance to associate with their Baristas, Roasters or Founders for more insights bc I was running in a schedule. But, noticed one or two workers were running back and forth to prepare to ship out the orders of coffee to their customers.
Abt the latte I ordered, it's a light roasted. Fresh and fruity. Flavor's very different than other roasters visited in the past.
Besides that, they also provide very affordable classes in the workshop to teach how to brew espressos and pour latte art. As well, selling the coffee subscription to home customers.
If they survived for 5 years, I am certain their business life should last for at least another 5 years period. Of course, they're full of potential to further scale up their business with a little twist.
Supposedly, I'd more blogs to write to share abt other awesome roasters and coffee shops experienced, but give myself an excuse that I wanted to focus on kicking off my project. Anyhow, will try to update as often as possible.
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