thinking of starting up my own coffee shop

[t-maxxracer32]

Hey guys hows everyone been lately?

I haven't been on the forums much.. been real busy with school, work, and the whole xbox 360 business... After making some money with that I decided to shut it down because once I get up to my apt in tempe, the living space will limit my capabilities. No airbrushing, no garage for dremel work to the cases, no huge room for the machine, etc.

I've always been more of an entrepreneur and always when growing up I've had some sort of side business to my actual work..

A buddy of mine called me up yesterday and brought to me the idea of opening up our own coffee shop right next to the ASU campus (Mill Ave.. for anyone who lives close)
At first thought I didn't really like the idea because I know very little about coffee, pastries, shakes, smoothies, etc.. But after going to a couple different shops in town I realized it may be easier than I think.
Everyone makes random smoothies and shakes in their blenders at home and they all taste pretty freakin good even though you aren't following any recipe, or have that great of ingredients to start with.
There will be a good amount of trial and error to find out which drinks we will have, which products we want to use, which machines to use, etc but all those details can be worked out in the latter months to come..

Right now we are still in the "talking" stages trying to figure out all the costs involved in this and what we need to make daily to break even..

We figure that we need to make about 5000 a month in order to pay rent, utilities, taxes, insurance, cost of supplies (this may make it more than 5k but were still not sure), cost of renting out equipment, etc)

and daily, we will need to make about $165 (about 42 drinks) to reach that goal. When looking into it in perspective 165 a day seems pretty dang low in my opinion considering the traffic that will be going by this location, but you never really know until you start things up..

Since I am a college student I wont really be able to work a heck of alot in the shop, but the buddy of mine is a freakin hard worker (puts in about 60 hours a week for his uncles water business) so I'm pretty confident he could run the shop mon-fri then I could take over during the weekends..

One huge thing about this whole deal is that we will not hire any employees until we figure out how everything runs. My buddy will run the shop most of the time, but whenever I dont have class I will hangout there and do homework.. if it gets busy or he needs some rest then I will be there to help him out.

Here are a couple aspects of the shop that will make it some what unique to others around.
-relatively cheap drinks
-Starbucks charges about 5-6 bucks a drink so we will take it down to around 4
-with every purchase, we'll throw in a homemade cookie, piece of banana bread, rice crispy treat, etc. (this is just an idea..)
-the place will be more of a hangout spot where you get your coffee, chill do homework, study groups, etc
-possibly put up 2-3 plasma TVs with a 360, wii, ps3, etc
-have a couple computers out for general public use
-definitely free wifi
-have specials either on a daily basis or 2-3 times a week (wacky Wednesday--half off drinks, freaky Friday--buy 2 drinks get one free, etc)
-open early and close late (there are very few shops open past 9 there.. definitely no coffee places)

I'm sure we will come up with more if we come to the conclusion that we will actually be doing this..
I have not talked to anyone about pricing yet, but I called the real estate company who manages the property and left a message for him this morning so once we find out the costs for the place monthly that will basically make or break the whole operation.

I know many of you are wondering about funding so here it goes.
another buddy of mine has been wanting to go into business with me for quite a while so I called him up and he told me he could get me 25000 by August to start everything up and have some backup money in case the first few months are rough

I myself have about 10000 saved up, but that is supposed to be for my apt, food, etc in case college gets too hard and I cant work a whole lot.

The other guy who is going to be working in the shop has about 5k saved up now and can save up more before we get into this adventure.

I realize that the economy is not the best now, but that makes this a great time to start because the real estate will be cheaper to get into the building. You could also see it as a horrible time because people aren't buying.. but cmon people.. everyone buys coffee!

There are a few things we need to find out before investing a grip of time and some money.......
We are not sure if there are any other coffee areas in this little mile radius place.. and if there are.. how much business do they do.. do they have the whole hangout theme going? (I realize all coffee shops are hangout spots, but ours will have entertainment.. Tvs, games, computers, etc)
Are we even qualified to get into the place
legally can we just start up our own shop, sell whatever we want how we want, etc (I don't literally mean whatever we want...)
how long is the process to get a coffee supplier

the list could go on forever

basically the reason I made this massive thread (I do apologize for the length.. but i value everyone's opinion on here and I know alot of you are very smart) is just to see what you all thought of the idea and if you have any suggestions feel free to reply!! negative or positive I'm up for anything.

We have not put any REAL planning into this, but from talking to my 2 friends, I can tell that they really would like making this happen.

I can see this actually going somewhere.. as the main reason places close down are because they are paying the employees too much and cant make any themselves.

I don't see this idea as making us thousands and thousands of dollars every month, but it would be nice to own my own business and not have to put up with BS from management.

anyways.. let the ideas fly