Opening a café is exciting, and most of the mistakes happen before the first customer walks in. Use this as a working checklist. For licences, permits and tax, always confirm the current requirements with the relevant local authorities, because rules change.
Before you sign the lease
- Visit the location at different hours and days. A street that is busy at 7pm may be empty at 11am.
- Count who walks past and who stops. Foot traffic matters less than the number of people who actually enter.
- Check power, water, ventilation and where the kitchen waste goes. Fixing these later is expensive.
Equipment and menu
Buy the machines that make your best-selling drinks first and rent or defer the rest. A small, focused menu is cheaper to stock and faster to serve than a large one. Start with what you can make well and expand using real sales data.
Staff
Hire for attitude and train for skill. Decide early who handles cash, who opens, and who closes. Write the opening and closing routine down on one page.
Payments and records
Most of your sales will be cash, so decide how you will count the drawer at the end of each shift. Keep every receipt for supplies from day one. If you do not track sales and costs in month one, you will not know in month six whether you are profitable.
The first 30 days
Expect mistakes and write them down. Ask your first fifty customers what they liked and what was missing. Put up a Google Maps listing and a QR menu on every table so guests can browse in Arabic, Kurdish or English.