AAA Business Rating - A View, A Brew, A Loo

and An Exciting Update Too



February 2011 – Today (September 2011)



This blog post is rather exciting for me as it finally brings you up to date with where my tea room plans are at right now! From writing my first entry well over a year ago it has taken me this long to fill you in on the trials and tribulations of the past 18 months. I am now inching closer to achieving my dream and this blog paves the way for the radical news that I may have found the venue of my dreams.
This is bittersweet news for you as I need to remain rather cryptic about the details, but read on and in the coming weeks I promise it will become clear.

NOTE: Later today I will add a timeline which will provide a chronology of the journey so far and some key upcoming dates, including my new target opening date! UPDATED Timeline is HERE

February 2011


When you set up a business you find that people want to give you advice, after all your friends and loved ones usually like to be helpful. We all like to impart knowledge and we all have exciting ideas that we just love to share. Don’t worry this is not going to be a rant about how well-meaning folk stick their noses in to your business, as I learnt a long time ago to listen carefully to advice. Surprising information can come from sources you never thought likely to help. It is the helpful sayings and clichés that I particularly love and the best that I have heard relating to what makes a successful attraction for tourism came from a chap working for Visit Britain;

“The goal is to get people to spend their time and money with you’; their needs are few, a view, a brew and a loo.“ Visit Britain



This may seem a little coarse but the sentiment is truthful; to fulfil the basic Human needs, both spiritual and physical. Our spiritual needs are personal and subjective, however our physical needs are simple and yet so easy to get wrong. Many of my friends myself included will, regardless of how good a venue is, site the condition of the water closet as the make or break for a positive review. Suffice to say to find the perfect tea room venue this is stella advice.

How Starbucks make the Bigbucks

November 2010 - January 2011

This post is about working for Starbucks, judging them, learning to love coffee and working out to what extent I need coffee to have a successful tea room business in 2011/12. Here is the next instalment in my journey.

The chances are that you are reading this segment of my tea room journey, while drinking a lovely hot beverage. I can confidently make this statement because 2.25 billion cups of coffee are consumed every day and with the Worlds population currently estimated at 6.94 billion, that's a lot of coffee!*. As I haven't drunk my quota for the past decade and quite a few people on the globe don't own kettles I feel quite confident that you people out there must be guzzling coffee all day.

Coffee to me is a mystery. Like many people who work in offices I started drinking coffee because everyone else did and it was part of my induction alongside how to operate the photocopier. Unlike most people though my day became shaped by the effects of my morning cuppa, which looked something like this;

9am (9.15am ish) - Arrive at desk log on, emails etc
9.30am - Morning Coffee
11am - Caffeine driven productivity madness ensues
1pm - Lunch
2pm - Afternoon energy crash begins
3pm - Dangerously bored and sleepy now, best to just have another coffee
4pm - Caffeine mania returns productivity goes through the roof
5pm - Final end of day crash, the last 30 minutes drag...
6pm - Pass out

Suffice to say that I stopped drinking coffee in 2006, no real surprise that this is also the year that my career really started moving forward at a pace.

Diary Excerpt–The Birth and Death of the Old Coach House Tea Rooms

August 2010 – January 2011

August 2010
27th August 2010 – Business in Focus Advice
“Today I met with Jane Way at her offices in Cardiff Bay. Amongst several of the things that we discussed were how to go about finding the perfect venue for my new business. I have quite a specific idea in my head for what sort of shop I want for my tea room, this is based on good places I have been to in the past and also what shops I think are in Cardiff in areas that I think will work. 
For my first tea room and indeed my first business, I have decided to rent a property to minimise the risk involved and also keep my start up costs down. I figure that a good street facing unit on a busy shopping street area is the way to go. With this in mind I am targeting Wellfield Road, Albany Road, Roath, Pontcanna, Penarth, Whitchurch Village, Llandaff Village, Cyn Coed and Cardiff City Centre to start with. 
I will need A3 planning consent to operate my tea room, however getting this kind of planning consent where it does not already exist is really tough. It turns out that in the recent past Cardiff has been very free with handing out A3 consent, so takeaway outlets and restaurants have popped up all over the city. As a result Cardiff has now developed the opposite attitude and won’t hand out A3 easily. Scarily Jane also pointed out that it could take over a year to find a venue, she has had some clients where it has taken several years to find the right place…”
Tuesday 31st August – First Impressions of a Seemingly Expensive Property
“There are so few commercial properties listed on the internet in Cardiff that aren’t huge warehouses. It is really frustrating especially as it is now so easy to find residential properties online through third parties. I am stuck with www.findaproperty.com and www.primelocation.com neither of which have very much choice for my narrowed down search. From looking around so far properties of the size and in areas that I like range from £10,000 to £50,000 per annum.  I have budgeted in the region of £15-£20,000.
Mike has seen a property near Sophia Gardens which is pretty close to Cardiff City, however it is over my rent threshold and is one of the first properties i have found.”

How to Find and Lease the Perfect Commercial Property - 10 Top Tips

Yes this is one of the most exciting titles for any Blog post. I toyed with punning my way into this subject, but it is just too important to make the subject line any more exciting. I shall endeavour to make the content a little more interesting than the title!

July 2010 - May 2011

Just Looking I am Not Buying

I have been looking for a commercial property to lease in South Wales of the UK for the past ten months, to become the perfect home for my Tea Room Business. The writing of my business plan was one of the first steps in creating my venue requirement brief. You probably have a pre-conception in your head for what a traditional tea room looks like. I am coming at this from a different angle, I can picture several types of buildings that may suit, but actually it is the content and subsequent functionality that helps me stay open minded to a venue. Jane Way advised me that it may easily take over a year to find a venue, when we met in July 2010 and here I am ten months on with no signed lease agreement. It may be very easy to find the venue you want, but the majority of small business' rely to a crucial extent on finding a venue that is actually quite unique. To me it feels like finding a needle in a haystack.

When I sat down to find my perfect property I started by creating a brief that would allow me to rule in, or rule out certain venues quickly. There are many things to consider when making your venue brief here are a few good questions to ask yourself particularly if you are looking for a retail property;

Procurement Fun 2. Pretty Tables

October 2010

Wombling

My favourite two methods of acquiring furniture for my Tea Room make use of the on-line organisations Free-Cycle and Gumtree. +I currently have the luxury of time and a lovely large spare room to cram full of goodies.

Free Cycle - Cardiff

Gumtree

Both of these sites have their pro's and cons but used together they are a wonderful tool for finding the great bargains.

How to Right a Business Plan Wrong - 10 Top Tips

For the regulars visiting this blog you will know that I am in the process of setting up a traditional tea room business in Cardiff, South Wales, that celebrates home made, fair trade, fabulous cake, coffee and loose leaf teas. I started this mission in June last year (2010) and am focussing the next few weeks on bringing you up to date on the story so far as I build up to open in Spring 2012.

August - October 2010 

Anyone can start a business, you see that happening every day. I notice usually when I think that someone is doing a bad job of running a business particularly bad tea rooms, café's and coffee shops. When you sit down to a sticky table, or get told to clear your own tray, or people there to provide a service to you are plain rude, I just think how do you people make any money? I could do that better! Have you ever had the same thought?

Watching Mary Portas giving what seems to me like pure common sense to people in business always ignites the entrepreneurial fire in my belly. Why do these people go into business?

So two interesting points here, anyone can go into business and do it badly and most of those people don't seem to have a passion for what they do. To make my tea room business a success I would need to be thorough in the start up and entirely committed to seeing the vision through.

Some Links I Love

April 2011

Some Bogs that I am loving at the moment, take a moment to have a look at them. There is some great information here I have yet to start sourcing my tea suppliers so drop me a line if you have some ideas.

The Pink Whisk
15 Gift Ideas for Tea Lovers
Mellow Monk's Green Tea Blog: A temple founded by a mellow, tea-loving monk
The Great British Bake Off Series 2

Just for you a very special Sunday recipe! Let me know how you get on.

Melting Chocolate Pudding Recipe