Week 4 Biz Cafe

This week I did not make many changes to Cafe Europa's setup, but I will give an update on the cafe's current decisions.



Management Decisions

• No changes; Total Manager Wages, Total Server Wages, and Total Employee Cost remain the same as Week 3

Marketing Decisions

• I am keeping the same promotional ad/coupon in the daily newspaper.


• I did get some feedback from my new coupon: "Customers redeemed 48 coupons, $24 in discounts."

Operations

• The cafe hours remain the same as Week 3


• During Week 3, 8 lbs of coffee went to waste. Instead of buying 61 lbs like I did last week, I bought 56 lbs of high quality coffee to reduce waste.

Service Capacity

• Monday-Friday: 360 customers


• Saturday: 384 customers


• Sunday: 336 customers

Checkbook

• Balance as of Jan. 22 (end of Week 3) was $10,700.28


• To review some previous balances for comparison, my balance at the end of Week 2 was $9,577.98, at the end of Week 1 was $8,956.99, and at the end of Week 0 (which included my $25,000 loan and startup costs) was $12,500


• Overall, my balance seems to be steadily increasing and hopefully I will be able to make a profit from this business enterprise.

Comparitive Results:

Cafe Europa continues to have high standings compared to the other cafes. As of this moment, it ranks fourth in Revenue Value, third in Revenue (cumulative) Value, second in Cups Sold Value, and second in Customer Satisfaction.

Here's to another great week at Cafe Europa!

Preparation Decisions (better late than never)

Here is any information that I haven't previously covered about the starting up Cafe Europa:

• I believe the advantages of the Main Street location include the proximity to the upscale restaurant across the street and the quick walk from the college campus. I hope customers will enjoy Cafe Europa's ambiance after a nice dinner, or will enjoy the relaxing atmosphere to study.
• I believe my initial startup expenses will be around $18,000 including rent, utilities, and the first week's coffee purchase. The balance in my checking account will probably be about $7,100 after paying for these initial expenses, since I started with a $25,000 loan.
• The monthly fixed costs for the cafe will be around $20,000, including salary expenses, coffee expenses, rent expense, utilities expense, and advertising expense. This estimate is assuming I open on weekends and hire more servers and managers.
• I think customer satisfaction, cups sold per day, and overall revenue will be taken into account when the two awards are considered. I bought the finest furniture and equipment and work hard on the overall design of the cafe in order to have wonderful ambiance. I also buy high quality coffee and make sure I have enough servers in order to keep high customer satisfaction.

Week 3 Cafe Europa

So far, Cafe Europa is still going strong compared to the other cafes. It remains above average in all fields, and especially excels in the revenue value category and the customer satisfaction category. As of now, it has the third-highest revenue value (behind Duncan Hills and Chandler's) and the second-highest customer satisfaction rating (behind Duncan Hills). During week 3, I have made some interesting choices that will mix things up. 

Management:

• I hired a third manager, increasing total weekly manager wages to $1800
• I hired four servers, increasing server wages to $1050
• The new total employee cost is $3,063.75

Marketing:

• My daily ad now includes a $.50 off coupon
• I submitted a link for my daily ad
• Pricing remains at $3.20 per medium cup of coffee

Operations:

• I have decided to open on weekends. My new hours for the cafe are:
  

M-F: 7:00 am- 10:00 pm
Sat: 7:00 am- 11:00 pm

Sun: 8:00 am- 10:00 pm

• Last week I had to make an emergency purchase of 10 lbs of coffee. In order to account for a growing customer base and new weekend hours, I carefully chose to purchase 62 lbs of coffee for this week (cost= $372)
• I currently have 17871 cups in inventory

Service Capacity:

• My current customer estimates for Week 3 are:

M-F: 345 customers/day

Sat: 368 customers

Sun: 322 customers

Checkbook balance:

• My balance for the end of Week 2 is $9577.98

Daily Receipts (from Week 2):

• Total customer capacity: 1,725
• Total cups served: 1,192 (the most cups were served on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday)
• Total receipts: $3,814.40

I also took the following notes from the Labor Report:

• The average turnover rate of servers in my area is 12.5% per month
• Minimum wage is $5.75/hr

So hopefully my decisions for this week will help continue Cafe Europa's success and will eventually lead to a profitable small business!

Cafe Europa Daily Ad and Coupon

Week 2 Cafe Europa

This week at Cafe Europa...

Many new decisions were made. I learned some things from the first week, and right now my cafe boasts the second highest customer satisfaction. Also, Cafe Europa has the highest cups sold value at 1192. It is doing above average in the other fields on the comparative results table.

I noted that in the first week, five pounds of coffee went to waste, and by the end of the week I still had 19,063 cups in inventory. Based on this information, I made the following notes:

Management:

Total manager wages= 1200

Total server wages= 700

Total employee cost= $2042.50

Marketing:

Price of medium coffee= $3.20

Advertising (Daily General Awareness Ad)= $1400

Operations:

Purchased 32 lbs high quality coffee

No more cups were purchased this week

Special:

The cafe logo was uploaded

Daily Capacity from Week 1:

345

Cups Sold during Week 1:

937 cups

Pounds of coffee used during Week 1:

30

Cost per cup: $0.07

Cost of coffee per cup: $0.19

Hopefully I will gain customers during Week 2 and will sell more coffee. I also hope to maintain a very high level of customer satisfaction.

Until next week,

Maddy

Cafe Europa Logo

The logo for Cafe Europa is finally here!

This logo will be printed on the cups and in our weekly newspaper ads. I hope it reflects the trendy sense of atmosphere that Cafe Europa aims for.

Practice Week

Although I am not quite sure if the practice week ended up counting at all, I did keep a log of the decisions I made that week. Now since the simulation seemed to be cancelled out, I also entered these same decisions for what I believe was the real Week 1 of BizCafe. I entered the following choices:

Management Decisions:

-I decided to pay the managers $600 per week

-I hired 8 servers who will be paid the standard wage that BizCafe set

Operations Decisions

-I chose to open Cafe Europa from 7:00 AM to 10:00 PM on weekdays (I hope to open on weekends when that becomes possible)

-I bought 35 lbs of high quality coffee and 20,000 cups (the more you buy the cheaper the price)

My goal is to have a high quality cafe that provides a warm and rich atmosphere as well as outstanding service. I want the coffee to be affordable enough for college students, but still want to attract an older crowd of customers as well. I aim for high customer satisfaction.

I feel that this will work well with the location of the cafe- close proximity to a university but across the street from a nice restaurant. Overall, from a marketing standpoint I believe it is important to impress customers so that they will want to keep coming back to my nice cozy cafe.