Advice for bakery startup

[Anonymous No.10168323]

Hey, biz.anons. Anyone here start up a bakery or similar. I’m investing nearly $100k. I’ve got a great baker and a great coffee guy. I’ve got a pretty sick location in LA area. I’ve got two areas of concern:

(1) any advice from bakery/restaurant veterans about what to avoid that will cause me grief and kill my biz.

(2) Where should I put my focus to succeed? Currently, I’m mostly focused on product (that differentiates us and that services real needs). But, perhaps, I’m not focusing on more important agenda items.

Please counsel me, oh seasoned veterans of the trade.

[Anonymous No.10168405]

bakery has quick customers, you want repeat business.

get people to opt into your SMS list for their first free pastry and coffee. what this means is they text a phrase like 'pastry' to a number on their phone like 58843. now their number is subscribed to your list. you got an amazing local lead for $1.

now the sms is something simple like sending a weekly offer and reminding them about you. i think the distinguishing factor between successful shops and unsuccessful ones is the atmosphere and attitude of the business. because there is obviously so many other options you have to distinguish yourself in some way.

with an SMS list you can keep connected, i used to pitch this stuff to businesses and it always blew them away when i compared the open rates and response rates that SMS campaigns brought. think about it, you like a local business, you want to keep in touch, they send you a discount to use once a week. You start going there more and more, there's always a nice group of people there.

next week they reminded you that tonight theyre having some live band from the city for free. you forgot about it but you go because you got a text like 6 hours before its happening. place is packed!

compared to facebook, twitter, email. nothing delivers like SMS for really building a powerful contact engine.

give it a try, it's not even expensive.

[Anonymous No.10168439]

Don't do it. Nobody eats carbs anymore because they're poison.

[Anonymous No.10168451]

>>10168323
Third wave coffee and french style real pastries faggot. I work at roaster with a good bakery.

Get someone who actually trained for the baking.

Coffee just get someone with good experience and huge drive.

If they don't want to roast and source down the line then you know that they will be a shit barista draining your bank

[Anonymous No.10168453]

>>10168323

Sounds fun, I'll visit next time in l.a. Where at exactly? Santa Monica? or L.A. by the grove?

[Anonymous No.10168454]

i mean you can get cheap resturant equipment because so many resturants fail

[Anonymous No.10168611]

>>10168405
Wow. Fucking great advice! Thx, dude!

[Anonymous No.10168626]

>>10168439
We will have plenty of gluten free etc options. It’s LA!

[Anonymous No.10168686]

>>10168451
Thx. Got this part covered. Baker is legit, graduated from cooking academy as pastry chef, has worked as lead in some top local bakeries. Coffee guy is top dog, too. He trained at Verve and manages his own smaller shop. We can’t roast to start, but we will get very choice, single origin etc bean. When we get the capital, we will acquire our own roasting equipment, if it makes financial sense.

[Anonymous No.10168705]

>>10168453
Thx, dude!! It’ll be near Pasadena in a neighborhood called Sierra Madre. We’re calling it Straightedge. Hopefully, we’ll be open in September. Coffee is on me.

[Anonymous No.10168739]

>>10168451
I re-read your post. I get what you are saying about the barista knowing his bean as an indicator of what sort of barista he will be. Thx for emphasizing that.

[Anonymous No.10168772]

>>10168705

shoot, used to live very close to pasadena and went there every weekend. Now I live pretty far south. Take some pics of it when it opens and post here. good luck!

[Anonymous No.10168819]

>>10168772
Thx, man! Will do!!

[Anonymous No.10168978]

>>10168439
>noone eats carbs
I eat them like hot pastries
kek

[Anonymous No.10169684]

>>10168978
Who the fuck lies to themselves that pastries won’t give them a soulgasm?