So I might own a cafe soon

[Zengus]

My dad is getting out of the nuclear power industry, what with what's going on with that in California right now. He was thinking about just retiring, but he asked me if I would be interested in moving back to my hometown and going into business with him if he bought a small, already profitable cafe there (I guess he has one in mind that he knows is for sale, and believes he can afford).

It's a pretty tempting opportunity. I actually know the cafe he's mentioned, it's one I used to go to myself when I lived there. It's been open for a good fifteen years or so, and no doubt has a very established customer base already. I also know their products, and I'm pretty confident I could make things of the same variety, but better.

I am not sure how I feel about getting tied down outside of New York for what would no doubt be at least four or five years of my life (that is how much time I would want to spend on this before selling the shop again in turn, ideally for a handsome profit, or hiring and training in enough staff to make it more or less self-maintaining so that I could focus on other projects). I'm also trepidatious to use money my father saved for retirement to do this, even if I know I'm awesome and talented (there is always the potential for catastrophe, in the restaurant industry). He has assured me that it wouldn't put him in financial jeopardy, however. It would be a big game changer.

Just thinking out loud, I guess

[Samurai]

That's a very exciting opportunity, Zengus, and I'm sure you'd make a good go of it -- you have management experience in catering and we know you're a talented enough chef to produce the sort of food that would draw customers. But even aside from your old man's finances (which quite rightly the two of you have already considered), there are a number of factors that could complicate the decision. Off the top of my head, do you want to leave the swirling metropolis that is NYC? Will you miss the social life, or the size of the job pool in your sector compared to most other places? Would you be kept interested by carrying on an established menu, when you might only have limited opportunity to try out new dishes?

Of course, if you can make it self-sustaining without your input, you have a solid base for new ventures, as you've said. It's really a decision only you can make (and I appreciate you're basically just using us as a sounding board), so I'd advise taking your time in making it.

[HisDivineShadow]

Just be careful, Zeng. You know how tough it is in the restaurant business. Still, if most of your profits come from coffee the total overhead may not be that bad.

[dexeron]

Dude, that's a wild position to be in. Got some deep choices to make.

Where in California were you from? Is it anywhere near San Diego? If so, and if you DO end up following this opportunity, I'll come visit your cafe next year when I'm there in June for the annual College-source conference.

[Zengus]

I am from Orange County, which is about a 45 minute to an-hour-and-change drive from San Diego, depending on traffic. Assuming I do do this, I would be ecstatic if you came to visit Dex (seriously, I'll make it worth the gas/rental car, I'll send you away with a fat box of house made chocolates or something).

I have been brainstorming pretty hard on this, not really on purpose, just can't get it off my mind.

I have a friend that works with me out here, he and I have job hopped together for the last couple years (whenever we decide a place fucking sucks, one of us gets a new job and then gets the other person hired in. It's great). I asked him if he'd be interested in moving out to CA and working in my shop with me if I helped him get settled, and he said he'd go for it. It's a big plus for the idea, he and I work excellently together and have good contrasting strengths, he would be an ideal partner in a shop like this that really only has room for two (maaaaybe three?) cooks anyway.

I am not particularly worried about profit margins and overheads- not because I think they're unimportant, but because I have a lot of experience dealing with them. I am all about 4-1 price to cost relationships and utilizing scrap and creating procedures to minimize waste (you think overheads are a good reason not to waste food? Pfft, they have nothing on the motivation one feels to keep his next-morning prep load as light as possible).

I have IDEAS for what kind of stuff to sell and how to structure the shop. Probably a heavy emphasis on pastry/sweet foods (house made ice cream, chocolates, cookies and cakes and whatnot), with some nods to my earlier savory working experience in the form of pizzas and sandwiches as well. There would be a relatively small static menu with perhaps one or two items in all categories (if your cheese pizza is the best your customer has ever had, you don't need to have 15 other kinds), and a currently-available-specials menu that would be about the same size as the static one at any given time. Focus on quality of each option instead of presenting a wide range of mediocre choices (no more than 15 food items on the menu at any time). It would be nice to do some other less common house made things, like chips to serve with savory items (elephant garlic chips with parmesan powder? Yucca chips with kafir lime and chili dust? Potato chips with malt vinegar and sea salt? I guess I could change up whatever kind I offered, every now and then), sodas, made-in-store-from-raw-beans chocolate, stuff like that.

I have had an idea for a pastry shop for a long time that I have always wanted to try. Basically, the idea is that instead of baking off all of your raw goods every morning and selling throughout the day, you prep yourself up but don't bake off some of your shorter-cooking-time items (anything that doesn't need more than six or seven minutes in an oven, croissants, rolls and sandwich loaves, puff pastry thingies, etc), and then fire them to order. That way you have a lower overhead because you can keep unbaked dough over at least one extra day (I would never, ever sell yesterdays pastries), and the quality of the food your customers get is much higher, since they're always getting things fresh out of the oven. The downside would be the mandatory short wait required for an order, but I feel like the idea is still worth experimenting with. I have wondered before why I've never seen a bakery that does this, but I think it's because whoever is working would have to be good at both pastry and line, and those two things don't get mixed together very often. You see some Chefs that can do both, but most Chefs aren't actually that great at working line, and you almost never see line cooks that can do pastry (I'm pretty irregular in that regard).

At the end of the day, however, in-house sales would be a secondary priority to catering, which is a much more profitable field. The in-house stuff would serve as an example of the quality of my food, a revenue stream to help cover operating costs, and a platform to advertise my catering services. If things went very well, I could possibly get another space somewhere and make it nice enough to use as an event venue, then start hosting parties there (that is how you make MONEY). I could do some fun things like four-or-five person dinner parties after hours in the bakery if I felt an itch to do more traditional, plated fine-dining stuff too, assuming my customer base had an interest in that sort of thing (it is at least a possibility!)

However I want to end up, I also have to think of how to transition there. One of the strengths of this idea is that the shop already has a loyal customer base. If I changed things too fast and hard, I would probably lose a lot of them (maybe not if they liked the new shop enough, but it is an unnecessary risk). I want to try and work there for a month or two under the current owners before taking over, so that I can get a sense of how business has been done there so far before trying to change anything around. I want to do things like put up a small letter in the shop saying that the management of the store will be changing soon, and have a little thing for people to fill out where they can describe what they like about the shop right now, so that I can know what to prioritize, and also to make regulars feel better about the change when it does happen.

Hrrrmmmmm

[Ventilator]

Not sure if its too late to toss in my two cents but here goes anyways:

It's a good thing to take a calculated risk every now and again. Seeing as this risk has great potential reward, and you have the appropriate background, I say go for it. The way I see it is that you have an opportunity here to pursue one of your long-time dreams. Even if this fails, you are still young enough to bounce back from defeat without really damaging your future. Also, it is good to live life without regret. You dont want to be sitting around 20 years from now wondering whether or not you should have tried. There is a lot of respect to be had from taking bold moves and giving them an honest-to-god try, no matter the outcome.

[synkr0nized]

Get it.

And then be at least decently-successful with it. And then you can have Gordon Ramsay come and yell at you and your staff for a few days to generate more interest among the community.

[Zengus]

I met Gordon Ramsay while I was in culinary school, he is a super cool dude. Becoming successful enough to talk shit with him again as an equal is a personal goal of mine.

Vent, I agree. At this point I'm committed to pursuing this idea in one way or another (it might not end up being the specific cafe we were looking at before, but my dad and I are thinking we're going to give this a try somewhere).

Right now we're waiting to see if my dad will in fact get laid off by Edison when San Onofre closes (it won't be a bad thing if he does, he'd get a huge severance package that he was planning on using part of to fund this project). If that doesn't happen we'll probably still go for it anyway, but the parameters of the attempt would change. Basically, my dad would still fund it, but I would be a lot more on my own when it came to running things since he'd be working his own job. BUT if things fall that way I could do this in other places, like maybe New York, or San Francisco or something.

Anyway, working on this and getting ready for it is my project these days. I will keep you guys posted.

[Ventilator]

Best of luck.

It would be cool if you got the place in southern California. I could get my band to throw shows there after hours, get some cross promotion going on.

[Zengus]

That would be really neat. Hey, maybe if I end up in SanFran (or Berkely, or Oakland) you guys could come do a mini-tour in the city or something. I would totally be willing to do things like advertise/split profits for something like that.