One of the first things I did at the start of week 7 was to create timeline for my final month on the placement. I carefully mapped out the next and last four weeks of work, ensuring everything I wanted to research was covered and I had enough time to do it all. This included, laws surrounding owning a farm and running a service such as a cafe and designing a mood board and theme for a cafe. I also looked more into developing my business into a hospitality business and what I would need to do this. I wanted to research brands such as mane and tail, who created a brand based of their cleaning products for horses and see if I could do something similar with alpaca cleaning products! These were a few of the topics I wanted to cover in my final month of the placement.
I began by researching more into how to hire employees, which I surprisingly knew little about! I researched how to provide pensions for employees and how to do this through certain outlets and what employees also need to do to ensure they are entitled. I looked into how best to advertise for local jobs, making sure that adverts are placed in areas that will provide the best candidates. I also outlined the procedure for interviewing candidates such as a standard set of questions and the ideal prospects for each to have. This would involve a standardised procedure to ensure each candidate has the same opportunity to shine!
As part of my business plan, I aim to have an onsite cafe, full of home comfort, rustic and artisan food, But.... There are a lot of laws surrounding running a cafe, including catering to people's allergies, the type of hygiene regulations that must be obeyed when handling food, such an hair nets, no long nails and the employees must have a separate changing facility to the toilets. These are just a few of the hygiene regulations I researched and how to set up a safe cafe environment for food, such as no wooden worktops and ensuring ceilings are regularly cleaned for dust so they don't fall on the food.
For my cafe, I decided to research what type of food would be best! I wanted to provide something higher quality than a standard 'greasy spoon' but also not as expensive as a gastro pub. I wanted to provide customers with a happy medium. A place that was reasonably priced for locally sourced, unique, and tasty food. Having locally sourced food would be a staple of my business, as my cafe would be more than just food, but a staple in the community to encourage community and a sense of belonging. This would give people a reason to come, especially if there were events like buy one get one half price coffee mornings for you and a friend.
I looked into the benefits of using locally sourced food, including new and exciting seasonal produce and helping local economies alongside the environment.
During the middle of my cafe research I created a mood board of similar cafes that provided the rustic appearance I would aim for my cafe to have. These include the use of cushions, throws and chalkboard writing.
I also researched tips on how to encourage consumers to stay loyal to the cafe. This would be essential if the products were priced slightly higher than your average coffee shop, as it would give people a reason to come back, these included keeping food in the eye line of the customer and loyalty cards. 
This led me to visit the Blue Sky Cafe on Bangor Highstreet. Which although isn't directly on the highstreet was still very full, as people were obviously aware of the location. The food was considerably expensive, but the cafe was full. They had boards up explaining where there food was locally sourced and were more than willing to tell you specifically where each product was from. They had a selection of handmade unique drinks and the decor was very similar to how I imagine my own cafe. The visit really helped me to picture how I would like my own cafe to look and feel and also the kind of food served!
Comments
Post a Comment