Coffee shops and cafés

"How to run a coffee shop" is an excellent  website on setting up and running a coffee shop.  It might be a sales web site for selling courses but there are some really useful nuggets on what you - museum, attraction, heritage site, gallery  or whatever -  should be doing and not doing  - in operations and marketing.

Thoroughly recommended even if you are making a complete success of your catering, tearoom, café etc. Allied with the Association of Independent Museums' pdf download on running Successful Museum Cafés, how can you fail? 

Trends for Museum Cafés to look at?



Not just a frothy drink

As the UK coffee shop market continues to grow, brands are searching for ways to stand out from the competition and meet consumers’ rising expectations says consultancy Pragma following research published in Marketing Week in August this year.

 

Coffee chains are struggling to encourage brand loyalty among consumers as convenience becomes an increasingly important factors.

As museum cafés attempt to become destinations and stand out from the crowd and the V&A's campaign from 1988  is still remembered by some  - 'Where else do they give you £100,000,000 worth of objets d'art free with every egg salad?; V & A an ace caff with quite a nice museum attached' - there may be some lessons here in this research. For example the research shows that ‘milky’ varieties of coffee such as cappuccinos and flat whites are the most popular with 47 per cent of drinkers selecting this category as their favourite. ‘Full strength’ is second with 29 per cent while ‘cold speciality’ drinks like frappucinos are third with 6 per cent. According to the study, nearly half of those who prefer milky coffees say they find this variety ‘comforting’.

See more at Brewing up plans to beat the competition