Building Alterations or Extension

John owned a restaurant in a busy market town in South England. A neighbouring café became available and as he wanted to expand his business. He bought the premises. To cut down costs, he would have one kitchen that would serve the 2 food outlets. The kitchen would provide the food for the café between 8am to about 6pm. The same kitchen would then provide for the restaurant for dinner sessions.

He re-furbished the café by taking out the kitchen so the café had more seating space. He made a new entrance from the restaurant kitchen to the café.

Contrary to expectations, the takings of both restaurant and café fell. He tried a number of marketing and publicity campaigns to improve business but none worked.

We were called in to have a look at the business.

Recommendations

1. The back entrance between the kitchen and the café was to be sealed. The café was then refurbished to a modern coffee shop – A serving counter for premium coffee and snacks. The entrance was widened with arranged seating outside. This increased the seating capacity by about 50%.
2. Coffee shops adjacent to road junctions in general do good business.
3. Start dates were given to start marketing and opening the Coffee shop.

Result

John could not believe the response to the business of the coffee shop. There were queues of people coming in all day. The takings of the restaurant went back to the pre-café levels. He was extremely happy with the result.

Coffee Shops do good business at road junctions. In the USA, most Starbucks are located at road junction. In some cities, there are 2 and possibly 3 located at one road intersection. When you visit the Singapore or Malaysia, you will find the coffee shops are located at road junctions. This is because of the types of energies emerging from the cross road.