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[Somrak]

I wish you good look.
But as told before. You need a good businessplan and good calculations.
May look for a cooperation with a cafe-companie other than Bon Cafe (may Lao, Vietnam, .. ?), then there are
a lot of Bon Cafe Shops around allready.

[simcity]

Somrak, on 2010-02-12 04:22:57, said:

I wish you good look.
But as told before. You need a good businessplan and good calculations.
May look for a cooperation with a cafe-companie other than Bon Cafe (may Lao, Vietnam, .. ?), then there are
a lot of Bon Cafe Shops around allready.

Vietnam coffee bean importer in Bangkok, WOW that interest me ... best coffee bean i purchase was in Vietnam.

Did Mr Somrak has more information regarding a Vietnam cafe-companie (company) here ?

[CarlBkk]

I have a friend who owns a coffee shop chain in the UK - I'd be interested to get some Viet coffee beans to him and see what he thinks. Can anyone recommend some brands?

As for a model coffee shop in Bangkok...look no further than Pra Kanong BTS station. Go to the base of the BTS in the direction of soi Pridi itself and you will see M Coffee. It's never empty and often full. Customers are 50/50 foreign and Thai. Looks nothing special, but go in and get food and coffee like I did and you'll soon realise....

amazing food at average 70 baht per dish. Good menu, nothing too extravagant.
amazing freshly cooked waffles with real fruit that all customers inside and out can smell when being cooked.
amazing northern Thai coffee.
a few comfy chairs
free water refills
no wi-fi so customers don't take up seats for hours
a magazine/newspaper rack

[Pash]

manjara, on 2010-01-29 15:51:52, said:

As someone who has been through this process, I can give you a few pointers.

Starting a company will cost money (about 80-100k/year) that you can't afford, best do it in the wife's name as sole trader unless you need a WP / job to get non-O or business extension

Setting up a coffee shop that sells decent (e.g. CoffeeWorld) coffee is not that cheap. We did not do a franchise, which would cost more but they might package up the equipment needed better, so not sure which is best. But consider (for a 40m2 shop):
- Espresso machine (150,000-400,000 for a new one)
- Fitting out the shop with basic counter etc (150k - the specialist coffee shop builders were quoting more than 200k)
- Paper/Plastic Cups, spoons etc (minimum order 20k if you don't buy from a franchisee)
- Air con, fridge, cake display, till (near 100k)
- Furniture, plants etc (nearly 100k)
- Staff at 5-7k per month each, and you need to train them to use the machines etc
- misc kitchen equipement, coffee grinder etc (40k)

Location, as people have said previously is critical, I would say it needs to be in a place where a lot of people work. We were located near a school and in a big apartment block, but did not get as much trade as we expected and it was not constant through the day.
Excluding amortization and rent/electric costs, it will cost between 15-20 baht to make a coffee, so to support a shop you really need to sell at 40 or more. On a good day we would take in 3000-4000 baht, but overall we were only just about breaking even (minus the initial investment!)
I think we might have been able to generate some profit with a bit of marketing and some better processes to stop 'revenue leakage', but in the end, the thing that killed the shop was that the staff would just quit. No warning, no notice, they just wouldn't turn up one day and that was it, meaning that my wife was trying to run it alone with 2 kids under 4! (at the time). (One of the staff who just left was a family member!)

Luckily it wasn't something we were doing for a living, just as a hobby to see where it went, and I was only around part of the time as my work was primarily overseas.
It would have been nice if the Coffee Shop had made money, but unless you are completely on top of it and generating revenue of 100k/month on >40 baht coffees, it's unlikely that you will.

Did any of you read the original post? Is it just a chance to be negative??

Quoted: "We are thinking just a small booth or a corner booth to start with"

Also the guy who set up in Melbourne ( and should have checked out Sydney) should be able to tell you that there are lots of the booth style coffee places that survive. And that is in a saturated market.

Whether it works in Bangkok is up in the air but the poster says he is willing to gamble.

He is looking for ideas not coffins

[ohiojim]

what los doesnt need is another small coffe shop. whats the point of running a business for little or no money. IS A THIA GIRL INVOLVED?

try running a subway franchise like the one near asok mrt with a surly thai girl manager. thats one way how not to run a buznit. i cant see myself spending another bath there. she cant understand why a customer would want bacon cooked.................lol.

[mikey88]

Some very helpful replies and thank you for that (as an interested party)...however I'm always struck but how terribly rude many corespondents to Thai Visa Forums are....crude and rude. Mike

[tombkk]

You are replying to a very old topic here... I'm closing it now. If you have questions about opening a small coffee shop, please open a new thread, as the information here might be outdated anyway.

If you find any remarks rude, please use the Report button. We'll take care of that.