1. The new market place – mainly good news

A bigger cake

There has been a significant cultural change in the last ten years or so. Eating out during the day has become much more than just attending to a physical need. It has become a positive pleasure which increasing numbers of people indulge in – and not just at lunchtime. You will see people snacking or drinking coffee at all times of the day. And they are constantly on the lookout for new places with interesting ideas to tempt them. They also have much greater spending power – hence the demise of the packed lunch. This all means that the size of the cake has increased enormously.

The other side of the coin, however, is that there has been an explosion of new outlets of every kind, shape and size to cater for this demand. Quality levels have gone up in leaps and bounds as customers have become increasingly discerning. Increased demand has led to more demanding customers.

More potential locations to choose from

Nowadays you’ll come across neighbourhood sandwich-coffee bars in areas of town, away from the centre, where they would not have been commercially viable up until fairly recently. This is partly explained by the increased and widespread demand for quality food to take away.

However, economic changes have also played a part. When I moved to Edinburgh in the 1970s there were neighbourhoods packed with small greengrocers’, haberdashers’, butchers’, fishmongers’ and other specialist shops, often family businesses. In addition there was a trend for banks, building societies, solicitors and estate agents to open branches in outlying areas of cities. So small units in areas well away from city centres were much in demand.

Things are very different now. The advent of shopping centres and the rationalisation which has taken place in the financial and business sectors have led to the closure of many of these units. As a result many small and medium sized shops have been coming onto the market in recent times. Such areas are often particularly good for the small independent since they may not be capable of producing the level of turnover required by larger operations which by their nature are less flexible and adaptable.

These patterns have been repeated to a greater or lesser extent throughout Britain. Accordingly there is now greater scope for acquiring all sorts of properties at many price levels in a wide variety of locations. Despite this, the prime sites will always attract a lot of competition.

2. Assessing your suitability

Are you physically fit?

Running a sandwich-coffee bar hands on involves a great deal of physical activity requiring a lot of energy. You will be on your feet most of the day. For this reason good posture is very important if you are to avoid back pain. By the end of the week you may well have collected the odd cut or bruise.

Imagine the scene:

You arrive at the shop at 7.30 am. You’re hoping that the rolls and bread have been delivered and that the lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers have arrived. (If not there’ll be urgent phone calls to the offending supplier.) You put the different breads in their baskets and start washing and slicing the vegetables. Sandwich ingredients stored in the fridge or the bottom of the serve-over unit have to be brought out and put attractively on display.

For the first part of the day you’re getting ready for lunchtime:

• mixing mayonnaises (add a few fresh herbs to good quality mayonnaise to create some really special accompaniment for meats and other ingredients)
• preparing some of your own ingredients e.g. salsa and coleslaw (so simple and so much nicer than the processed stuff)
• preparing and packaging sandwiches for the shelf
• receiving supplies, putting them away in cupboards
• paying the window cleaner
• running to the bank for change
• serving some customers
• making sure the soup is heating up gradually, ready for lunchtime – don’t forget to stir it or it will stick to the bottom of the soup kettle!

At lunchtime you will, you hope, be under serious pressure as the crowds arrive. The work is relentless and the noise of people talking all at once around you can be overwhelming. And what about your own lunch break? Well the staff have to have theirs so basically you just fit yours in if and when time allows. After the lunchtime rush you then have to concentrate on:

• the clearing up, the clearing up and the clearing up
• the telephone ordering (if you’re lucky you can sit down to do this)
• serving a steady trickle of customers (and don’t complain that they’re keeping you off your work – they’re the reason you’re there!)
• remaining reasonably polite while yet another eager salesman comes in to explain to you why his cakes are better than the ones you’re currently selling
• dealing with numerous points about the shop raised by an EHO (environmental health officer) during an unannounced (naturally) visit. This thankfully is exceptional.
• re-stocking the drinks shelves
• wiping the tables, cleaning the sides and spraying them with anti-bacterial fluid
• finally, sweeping and cleaning the floor and organising the rubbish so that you’re ready to do it all over again tomorrow.

On your morning off you can go to the cash and carry to stock up on fizzy drinks, boxes of chocolate bars, crisps and so on. And what about the book-keeping – evenings or weekends perhaps?

Be honest, could you take it?

Do you like people?

In the course of a day you will come into contact with a great many people, some of whom you know and like, others you’ve never met before and a few who might be obnoxious. In all cases it is essential for you to smile and be pleasant and make time for some small talk.

Will you be able to cope diplomatically with someone who wants to give you chapter and verse about what they did at the weekend, when over their shoulder you can see a large queue of impatient people, short of time and food, building up?

It’s true with most jobs, but especially when dealing directly with the public, that you must leave your troubles at the door when you come in. After all, you do want customers to come back. Sudden outbreaks of moodiness create a bad atmosphere and if repeated can undoubtedly be bad for business. This can be a major problem with a small minority of staff, an important point which I will deal with in Chapter Eight.

Can you cope with all eventualities?

One day you will have somebody explaining to you how to clean the condenser in the dairy unit; the next, a pest control expert lecturing you on the private lives of mice and the one after that a salesman wearing the kind of back-of-the-throat-catching after-shave (now banned in some Californian restaurants), using his powers of persuasion to get you to switch your mayonnaise order to his company. At times you will pine for a job like theirs which simply requires you to be knowledgeable in one particular area.

The buck stops with you. If a member of staff phones in sick you will have to accept that your plan to do a bit of book-keeping is doomed and head for the shop right away.

Are you happy to spend lots of time thinking about money?

Whether it’s BP, ICI or your small business, money is what it’s really all about. You might love what you’re doing but if it’s not making a reasonable profit there really isn’t any point in doing it. To be honest you’ll know pretty quickly if the venture is going to be financially viable. Assuming it is you will still have to monitor the finances closely on a daily basis and learn how to make money and not waste it. Take one small example:

Are you going to have your windows professionally cleaned on a regular basis? Or are you or one of your staff going to do it? Before you answer, bear in mind that a window cleaning bill of say, £10 a week, over the course of a year amounts to £520. That’s a lot of sandwiches and cups of coffee. And don’t forget that everybody else from the butcher to the taxman gets their money come what may, so any new spending decisions affect the bit at the end that comes to you.

On the other hand you would have to invest in some materials; and of course it may not present a very good image to the outside world to see the boss up a ladder with a squeegee (though some people might admire the dedication). You might also find that some employees would baulk at doing this.

It may seem a minor point but, as you can see, every decision has to be thought through and money will invariably be the top priority.

Are you genuinely interested in food?

Are you enthusiastic about food or is eating just another bodily function?

• Do you know when an avocado is just right for use in a sandwich?
• It is possible to make good sandwiches with tinned tuna. But how would you rate tinned salmon?
• When you’re asked if the prawns defrosted yesterday are still OK, will you be able to give a quick response with confidence at half past eight in the morning?
• Which kind of apple will the customer be more impressed by, Golden Delicious or Braeburn?

The fact is that a lot of the food you get in the better sandwich bars nowadays is on a par with reasonably good restaurant food – and to be able to compete you need to have a passion for food, as well as a good working knowledge of it.

It is possible for competent people to run some reasonably successful businesses even though the principal product holds no particular interest for them. I had an uncle who ran a successful operation selling fireplaces in much this way. But honestly, food is different. Whilst facts about the correct installation of marble fireplaces can be learned, dealing with food involves skills of creativity, taste and judgement which are more personal and instinctive. In the food business nowadays you have to be open to new flavours (guava, ostrich) and new combinations of old ones (sardines with tarragon).

You only have to look at the industry which has built up around TV cookery programmes to know how much the public’s interest has grown. The market is undoubtedly there and is increasing, but it’s a demanding one. You will need to provide a service that is just that bit different to attract people’s attention and persuade some of them to become regular customers. Without a feel for food and its possibilities this will be much more difficult. If you have any kind of catering qualification all to the good, but it is not essential.

Can you handle wasting perfectly good food?

Running a business challenges everyone in different ways. In my own case I thought it might be getting up early in the morning or possibly having to deal with staff problems. True, there have been times when these things have been challenging. However, the thing I find hardest to accept is throwing out perfectly good food.

There are, of course, strategies both for avoiding waste and for dealing with it when it does occur (see Chapter Five) – but sometimes there’s no way round it. When this happens you just have to accept it and see it as one more aspect of running a business. You must at all costs avoid the temptation to find ways of disguising ageing food and offloading it onto an unsuspecting public. They’re no more stupid than you are.

3. Doing your research

There is a lot of work to do before you sell your first sandwich. Up to this point in your life you have no doubt patronised numerous sandwich bars, cafés and similar outlets. But then it was different. Your interest was that of a customer not the potential proud proprietor of such an establishment. You must now put lots of sandwich bars and the things they sell under the microscope in order to help you formulate your own plan. You should:

1. Test drive lots of sandwich-coffee bars

Buy sandwiches, toasted sandwiches, tortilla wraps, microwave snacks, cakes and so on from a variety of outlets. Take them home, take them apart, see what’s in them, think about portion size, eat them, assess the flavour quality, check the packaging and labelling for practicality and user friendliness and generally assess them to see in what ways and to what extent they would fit in with your embryonic scheme of things.

Make notes. You should quickly build up a list of things to avoid. Also try to collect as many menus as possible and go through them with a fine toothcomb for ideas.

Contact Sandwich and Snack News, a very informative trade magazine which encourages you to ‘Stay in touch with your market through your industry magazine.’ Ask them to send you out a free sample copy and pick up ideas from them. If you’re convinced it’s for you, become a subscriber. The annual fee is currently £40 and the magazine is published six times a year. The magazine upholds the aims and objectives of the British Sandwich Association which essentially amount to promoting good standards, better knowledge and bigger sales of sandwiches. Subscribers have access to a Free Advice Line run by the British Sandwich Association. They also receive other magazines about coffee and café culture as well as the European scene. The contact address for Sandwich and Snack News is 8, Home Farm, Ardington, Oxfordshire 0X12 8PN Tel: 01235 821820. e-mail: editorial@papa.org.uk

2. Be aware of prices

One of the most important features of running a successful operation is getting the pricing right. It is also one of the most difficult, especially when you’re starting up and might not feel confident about accurately valuing what you provide. It’s impossible to recommend specific amounts to be charged for particular types of sandwich; there are far too many regional variations and, of course, prices never stay still.

This is an ongoing task since naturally the cost of supplies goes up from time to time and you will probably have to impose a rise in the price of your core products once a year at least.

Don’t forget also the ancillary things like bars of chocolate and cans of juice – you really don’t want to find out that a can of Coke is 5p cheaper in your place than everybody else’s. Or 5p more expensive. People will be prepared to pay more for the things which are uniquely yours like sandwiches if they feel the quality justifies it, but they will feel hard done by if the privilege of eating your wonderful sandwiches also means they have to pay more for cans of juice than they used to pay in the place next door.

There is a magazine called Price Check which gives up-to-date retail prices based on information collected from the cash and carry wholesalers sector. It can be obtained from many cash and carrys and currently costs £1.75. You can also access the information via the Internet by visiting www.products-online.co.uk. This service is free.

This can be useful as a general guide when you’re starting out. It can also be helpful when you are working out figures for your business plan. However, as you become established it’s more relevant to be aware of the prices being charged by places in your immediate vicinity. As you become known in the area this can become awkward – you don’t want to go into your competitor’s place and ask them what they charge for a chocolate bar! Don’t be afraid to ask friends or new employees to spy on your behalf. Do remember though to compare like with like. A grocer’s shop will probably charge less for a can of juice than you; the kiosk at the cinema a great deal more.

3. Visit as many sandwich-coffee bars as possible

Sit in and take ages over a cappuccino and cake. Go back for seconds. Watch the staff (discreetly of course). Are they smartly dressed and groomed? If they have some kind of corporate image are you impressed by it or do you think those baseball caps look just a touch tacky? Do they seem more interested in talking to each other about what they did last night than being alert and responsive to customers’ needs?

Watch the boss. Is he or she enjoying their work or does he look furtive, harassed and exhausted? Does it all seem like a happy ship? Why? Why not? Is the place clean? When the staff prepare food are you reassured that they are observing good hygiene standards? Does there appear to be a sensible layout to the shop?

What about the customers – do they look content or are they a bit disgruntled? If it’s lunchtime it may well be busy but is there a reasonably efficient system for dealing with the demand? In general, what is the atmosphere in the shop like? Do you feel comfortable? Do you like the music? Is it too loud? What about the decor? Are there any strong aromas – pleasant and/or unpleasant?

Draw diagrams of imaginary shops, make lists of the types of equipment you will need, think of colour schemes, seating arrangements and so on. Although you will be concentrating on the major issues such as the quality of the food and drink, it is also a good idea even at this stage to be thinking about some finishing touches which would make your place that little bit different – always try to stand out from the crowd. It might be some pictures, or an exterior sign. Don’t just copy other sandwich-coffee bars and cafés but rather do a bit of lateral thinking with your own fertile imagination.

Visits other towns and cities to see what other people are doing. Even if you pick up one solid idea from such an outing then the trip will have been well worth it. Go to London. Many new trends start there. Just walk about and try to experience as many places as possible. Be ruthless. Look at a place from the outside and if it’s clear it’s not your sort of operation give it a miss and go on to one of the many that will be more relevant to you. If you don’t do this you’ll just get bogged down.

Although you may well wish to start up a small independent operation, do go and have a look at the big chains as well. They didn’t get where they are now without a lot of good, well thought out and practical ideas.

Finally, make use of the Internet. Put words such as ‘sandwich’, ‘coffee’, ‘soup’, ‘take-away’ or ‘café’ into a search engine and see what wild and wacky things you come up with.