Business Plan Idea: Coffee Shop at CSU Campus

“We Brew With Passion!” 

Variety Coffee strives to provide a diverse selection of coffee beans and aims to be sustainable and eco-friendly through our sourcing and packaging. 

Variety Specialty Coffee, LLC., is a part of the Coffee & Snack Shops industry. We specialize in providing our customers with quality coffee beans around the world and creating a relaxing environment for students. The Coffee & Snack Shops industry generates about $45 billion of combined annual sales and $50.7 billion in revenue (SBDCNet, 2020). The cost for starting a new business in this industry is relatively low, ranging from $10,000 to $50,000. Based on these facts, starting a new business in the Coffee & Snack Shops industry is possible as it is inexpensive and provides an opportunity to grow. For Variety Specialty Coffee, LLC., a strength is our coffee bean selection. Our coffee beans are ethically sourced and come in a variety, such as Arabica and Robusta coffee beans. A weakness our business will face is the costly effects of outsourcing our coffee beans from various places. We will need to generate enough revenue to cover this expense. Variety Specialty Coffee, LLC will have the opportunity to develop a customer relationship culture in our shop. We understand that our target market is environmentally conscious; therefore, we have made it a point to provide eco-friendly cups and containers for our products and source our beans ethically. A threat Variety Specialty Coffee, LLC will encounter is competition with other coffee shops on campus. Campus Coffee would be our direct competitor as they are already well established and located only a few hundred feet from our location. 

Variety Specialty Coffee aims to provide students with a safe space to do school work while offering great coffee from around the world. Our store will encourage students to create their own groups based on the subject they may be working on. We will offer large tables, individual tables, fast internet and outdoor heaters. Through our website, students will be able to learn about our coffee options and leave reviews to encourage their classmates to try new options. Company Details 

333 S. Twin Oaks Valley Rd. San Marcos CA, 92096 

Variety Specialty Coffee focuses on providing an environment where students feel motivated to work on their school work, while also giving them the ability to meet new people and form new groups. Our company will integrate a lot of technology into our processes, such as reward points and monthly subscriptions. 

Our main target will be students and faculty at California State University, San Marcos. We believe that the Variety Specialty Coffee shop will provide a perfect space for students to chat with their professors in a more casual setting. 

Building Renovations  $13,000

Licensing & Permits  $8,000

Rent $3,000/Monthly

Inventory & Supplies  $15,000

Equipment  $6,000

Marketing  $2,500

Our App & Website  $2,500

We offer four different types of coffee beans, Arabica, Robusta, Liberica, and Excelsa. Arabica being the most common coffee bean is the rarest and a little more expensive. We also offer a 

coffee membership where our customers can subscribe for $10 a month and get unlimited coffee. We provide Americanos, Espressos, Lattes, Cappuccinos, Macchiatos, Mochas, and Cold Brew. Choices of different flavors and sweeteners include: vanilla, caramel, chocolate, white chocolate, honey, and cinnamon. Our milks include: almond, oat, half & half 2%, whole, and coconut milk. An addition to our famous coffee, we provide refreshing teas. These include: Chai, Black, Green, Motcha, Earl Grey, and Passion Tea. These can either be iced or hot and can always have your choice of sweeteners added. 

At Variety Specialty Coffee we provide different types of pastries which consists of: Bagels - plain, cheese, jalapeno, and whole wheat. 

Muffins - blueberry, chocolate chip, seasonal pumpkin, apple-cinnamon, and banana. Croissants - orange, chocolate, almond, and plain. 

Cookies - sugar, chocolate chip, and triple chocolate chip. 

Loafs - banana, lemon, seasonal pumpkin, and blueberry.

Brownies - chocolate and chocolate peanut butter. 

The coffee shop is located in California State University, San Marcos, and connected with the Kellogg library building. The coffee shop will be open every Monday through Friday from 8:30AM to 6PM. During the midterm and final weeks, students can grab a drink and pastry quickly between studies until 12AM, without leaving the building or campus site. Late opening hours on certain exam weeks will provide extra profits for the coffee shop. Several local and international students living in the dorms have the opportunity to eat something from the coffee shop without commuting. Also, students living on-campus can work as employees in the coffee shop without worrying about their transportation costs or fuel charges. 

The specialty coffee grade beans directly come from the diverse sources overseas to guarantee quality flavor variations for customers. For instance, the Arabica coffee bean has a more delicate and sweeter flavor, making it less acidic because they are farmed in high elevated areas where rain is plentiful like in Brazil. Specialty coffee, especially Arabica, is now the fastest growing sector of the coffee market as global consumers began to appreciate the taste, depth, and complexity of great coffee. Moreover, the coffee shop hires employees that are multilingual and can offer comfortable services in different languages like English, Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese. Innovative Variety Coffee App and Eco-Friendly Disposables 

Students can download the app and gain points after every purchase of a coffee and pastry. As people on-campus continuously purchase from the coffee shop, their credit points will increase

and they will be eligible for free coupons, discounts, and drinks. The app also provides students and other members of the campus with updates about freshly baked pastries. The app allows for students to save time and make orders from the touch of their screen before their arrival to the shop. Furthermore, the coffee shop offers biodegradable and compostable cups and paper straws, meaning the cups can break down into their natural elements to be repurposed. 

There is a small space in the coffee shop which might cause us to lose sales at some hours because customers would want to sit down inside to study and have their coffee. However, to combat this problem, opening a seating area outside will provide an additional improvement. Due to providing outside seating, we must think about the weather that comes with being in Southern California. The heat during the warm months can range anywhere from 75°F to 105°F degrees. By providing a covered seating area will allow our customers to enjoy their coffee without the inconveniences of the weather. 

We will be importing some of our raw coffee beans from Brazil. This may cause additional costs like import duty fees, tariffs taxes, and leading time from shipping that will drive our cost up. To fix this, we will need our ingredient costs to have a lock in pricing and control our inventory to keep our costs down. We will maintain a steady flow of inventory and incorporate the cost of tariffs and import duties that will be acquired. 

California State University San Marcos has approximately 16,000 students enrolled and around 1,000 faculty on campus. These numbers, paired with statistics from multiple studies show 50% of college students and 64% of American adults consume caffeine daily. The coffee shop will be 

surrounded with potential customers consistently from Monday to Friday. According to the National Coffee Association, an individual coffee shop can sell 200-300 drinks a day. With the large population of students having to be on campus for school, and the many positive features included in our business model, this shop can reach this number of drinks that the NCA mentions. A contract with the CSU system would allow for expansion to other college campuses, resulting in more profits. 

Our coffee shop will face the normal threat of rival companies being located nearby. A Starbucks located in a small shopping center across the street could be able to attract customers who prefer their flavors.

SBDCNet. (2020, May 17). Coffee shop business. Retrieved March 02, 2021, from https://www.sbdcnet.org/small-business-research-reports/coffee-shop-business 

https://www.ncausa.org/Industry-Resources/Market-Research