Cool - we should be able to hunt them down, but I'll let you know if we need the numbers. Thanks for the help!
It'll be called Dominican Joe - we work directly with farmers in the Dominican Republic to get our coffee. The big companies screw over the farmers, so we're cutting out the middle man to try to provide fair trade prices and help support those communities. The idea behind the shop is to raise money for various Austin non-profits, but primarily for one that does educational work down there. Hopefully we'll be open and getting the kinks out in July/August and running smoothly by the time the fall semester starts up!
Currently living in Austin as well. I'll stop by for the opening. whats it going to be called? I have a fraternity brother who owns a "fresh cup" over in the downtown area. Let me know if you need any advice or anything with the coffee shop. clutchfans readers got to stick together!
What, the poor Dominican farmers and other non-profits are more important than a Rockets BBS? Pfft. I know I've told you this before, but this is really an awesome thing ya'll are doing. It makes me want to move back to Austin to help out!
I was searching for web references of us in Google and this thread popped up. I realized I forgot to ever come back and post that we're open. So, (as of September), we're open! The shop is called Dominican Joe ( dominicanjoe.com ).
I've driven by the place a couple of times and have been meaning to stop by. I'm back home in Houston for the holidays, but will be sure to check it out next semester.
I know Dominican Joe- you guys have a really good business going there and a great location. I was a member of Big Picture Advertising and worked on the Brand Awareness campaign for you guys as part of my Campaigns course at UT. If you remember me, my name is Adrian; good to see you on BBS and I hope your business flourishes.
Wow, what a small world - that's crazy! Oh, and thanks for all of your work - I met with my business partner last week to go over all the ideas from the groups and we're excited to start work on a bunch of them!
Interesting, I have a friend who works there. And I currently work for Coca-Cola, but not in Austin. Most of the time smaller locations such as coffee shops and cafes don't have fountain soda machines, because they aren't put to good use. If these locations don't sell a high volume of sodas, they'll actually be wasting the syrup product (which is mixed with five parts water) as it expires after a couple months, and it then becomes a better value to sell bottles and cans rather than fountain drinks. Also, much of the time there are charges for the use of the equipment, at least that's the way it is with Coca-Cola. Only outlets meeting certain volume requirements will have fountain equipment for free. Just a heads up!
That's exactly what we learned - it didn't make sense financially to have the machine. So we just sell bottled drinks instead. You have a friend that works at DJoe? Who is it?
Hi boss! Chuichitrain and I are real good friends. I know we got bottles and stuff, but if there are any questions I can refer you to him. I never knew you were a Rockets fan... Can we consider selling dublin dr pepper along with the mexican coke?
Clutchfans EVERYYYwhere. lol On a serious note, my family is going to be opening up a small restaurant soon, and we were still undecided as to the drinks. The building was previously used as a restaurant, so they have all the hook-ups already there for a soda dispenser, but, my parents are funding this all out of their own pockets (no loans, etc.) so theres limited funding. What would be more cost effective? Soda dispenser or just selling bottles and cans?
If equipment is there, you guys should be able to continue using it. If it's just ready to have equipment hooked up, either Coke can let you use a machine (probably with a monthly fee), or you can purchase one from a used vendor (at least a thousand bucks). If it's a small place I'd go with bottles/cans, unless you plan on serving over fifty cokes per day.
Agreed. We have a small restaurant, which probably has 120 people on the SLOWEST day of the year. Imagine if you sold 50 a day, you'd need storage space to keep so many sodas in stock for a week (unless you plan to buy/order sodas more frequently), not to mention plenty of space in your walk-in cooler to keep enough cold for immediate sale. Or you could have a display cooler (glass door fridge) up front like some restaurants do to hold sodas and keep it stocked frequently. Is this a restaurant w/ dine in, or is it more primarily for take-out? If it's dine-in, is it w/ waiters or fast-food style?
Its a dine-in with waiters, and we do have a very large walk in cooler as well as a display cooler. Purchasing a used soda dispenser is almost completely out of the question for now. Renting one would depend on how much the monthly cost would be. Anyone know or have a ballpark estimate? I really appreciate all the help.
Can't tell you prices in Texas, since I work elsewhere, but the ballpark here is $59/month, plus initial installation costs (up to $750). Of course, if you sell 50 drinks a day you'll pretty much make the monthly fee back in about 24 hours. 50 drinks may not sound like a lot, but you'd be surprised how many small restaurants sell less than this. Most of the time people overestimate. If you have 120 guests per day in an independently owned sit-down restaurant, 50 non-waters sounds about right. Normal incidence rate is about 40% at these locations.
