Cafe Tangoing going gone!
This is the cautionary tale of Bruce Wharton, founder of doomed coffee shop Cafe Tango for putting a complete chronicle of his tale online. What a fantastic learning resource for others!
His website tells the tale of startup coffee business Cafe Tango from planning, through execution and eventual last tango — managing to make a surprising number of coffee business mistakes along the way and yet still able to survive for about 2 years before closing. It gives a great overview of things that can potentially go wrong, all in one convenient package.
Reasons for Coffee Shop Failure
He begins with an introduction and overview of the business:
[embeddoc url=”https://cdn.coffeestrategies.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/coffee-shop-failure-intro.pdf” width=”550px” height=”350px” download=”none” viewer=”google”]
Inconvenience (parking) and difficulty of spotting the location:
[embeddoc url=”https://cdn.coffeestrategies.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/Site-Selection.pdf” width=”550px” height=”350px” download=”none” viewer=”google”]
Overpaying for build out (better to keep it simple):
[embeddoc url=”https://cdn.coffeestrategies.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/Build-Out.pdf” width=”550px” height=”350px” download=”none” viewer=”google”]
The menu: too much food and “hotel style quality” coffee:
[embeddoc url=”https://cdn.coffeestrategies.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/bad-menu.pdf” width=”550px” height=”350px” download=”none” viewer=”google”]
Expensive advertising, rarely a good return on investment for coffee shops and discount coupons, which cheapen the perceived product and attract low cost opportunity seekers:
[embeddoc url=”https://cdn.coffeestrategies.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/expensive-advertising.pdf” width=”550px” height=”350px” download=”none” viewer=”google”]
Unfocused events that are more likely to deter new business than build loyal customers:
[embeddoc url=”https://cdn.coffeestrategies.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/Events.pdf” width=”550px” height=”350px” download=”none” viewer=”google”]
…and the final summary plus an unexpected bonus resume of skills at the bottom:
[embeddoc url=”https://cdn.coffeestrategies.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/failure-summary.pdf” width=”550px” height=”350px” download=”none” viewer=”google”]
We’ve all learned something here. For more information about starting a coffee shop, see my free online guide of business planning tips.
Interesting… I read the whole site but I did not feel that mistakes were presented with much clarity. In fact, it read more like excuses and an extended resume. I do wish Bruce would have been more clear about what he could have done better instead of blaming the “local culture,” etc.
Your post summarizes the negative aspects of his operation, and so I was surprised to see these same points portrayed in a positive light on cafetango.net.
Nevertheless, pretty good reading and it’s cool that Bruce is sharing this information with would-be business owners.
Perhaps he could add a “post-mortem” addendum with some humble thoughts on what he would do differently if he could start over.
Wow!!!! Someone can’t handle criticism. Grow up and learn or just keep failing.