3 Risks You May Have Overlooked at Your Coffee Shop

Your customers depend on you to get their day started and keep them going late into the night. Don't disappoint them by not taking the time to account for your small business' risks.

Picture this: the sun is just rising, you're opening up shop. You walk through the door, flip the light switch, and... well, nothing. Nothing happens. Your coffee shop doesn't have any power. How are you going to serve your customers coffee if all of your machines run on electricity? So what do you do? Did you account for a power outage? Perhaps, you thought ahead and purchased a generator for times like these. Maybe that was out of your budget, but you have a few gas burners in the back to make a limited selection of tea and coffee. You can learn how to make coffee on a stove here if you didn't already know how. But now that you have something to sell, you'll have to make sure your customers know that their options are limited without making them unhappy. Think about offering discounted prices!

Thank god you made it through that could-be disaster. The next day you walk into the shop confident as ever. If you made it through yesterday, you can make it through anything. You have a delivery scheduled for 6am with your food distributor and are expecting two weeks worth of milk, half-and-half, and sweeteners. But 6am comes and goes with no delivery. 6:30 approaches and you call the company and find out that your food delivery won't be there in time for the workday. Did you ever think this could happen? Maybe you keep extra supplies in the backroom in case of a scheduling issue with the distributor. If not, you'll have to run to the food store to grab supplies before any of your customers make their way into your coffee shop

And just when you think it can't get any worse, it does. Your cappuccino machine is broken. Do you have an expensive spare in the back? Will you be out of commission in the cappuccino department for the day? The week? Make sure you know the number of the servicing company that can fix your machine to get you back in business as soon as possible.

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