Diet of the Coffee Shop Owner

Today's Intake:
McD's Double-Cheeseburger
Breyer's Rocky Road Ice Cream
Apple-Cranberry Dessert Pizza
Streusel Dessert Pizza
Stuffed Deep Dish Pizza


This would make it seem like it is the diet of a glutton but every item on this menu was eaten by and large because I own a coffee shop. Today I chose to spend my day scouring downtown looking for possible store locations.
I chose a Double-Cheeseburger as my lunch so I could check email during lunch and because it was the only quick meal to choose since Kunming doesn't have a lot of healthy fast food restaurants to choose from.
Rocky Road Ice Cream was next to make sure it was truly in fact the genuine Breyer's brand. When in China you never know when someone is trying to pass a fake as the real deal so you must approach everything sceptically. My taste test's purpose was to determine whether the real Breyers was in Kunming and whether or not we could add that to our coffee shops offerings. I won't pretend like that was a sacrifice at all.Two dessert pizzas were up next. We are making dessert pizzas for taste testing because most Chinese customers ask for fruit pizza. I am happy to try our hand at a few genuine fruit dessert pizzas but in no way will I compromise to make the normal "not so delicious" Chinese fruit pizza that sometimes is served with/without mayonnaise.
Finally, the stuffed deep dish pizza. Normally, I wouldn't top off my day with a pizza in light of my other food choices but we are testing a new cooking method to improve our pizza's quality. So that means somebody has to try it and see if the new cooking method really is an improvement or not.

Biz Quirk #1- Customer Disservice

Now for a running blog segment entitled Biz Quirks. Quirks are commonplace when doing business anywhere but some seem more prevalent here. In fact when it comes to Customer Disservice, defined as the practice of not only failing to give good respectable service to your customers but going the extra mile to ensure that they have a bitter taste in their mouth, I don't know who is to blame when its a foreign company providing it so diligently. Its quite odd because the company has made a name for itself by providing high quality products and services but then its all lost when they turn it over to their companie's China division or pass their product on to another 3rd party. One particular bitter example was our recent dealings with a division of the Anchor company. Anchor makes great butter and cheese but also excels in their level of customer disservice. We recently made an order for unsalted butter and cheddar cheese blocks. We chose to order in bulk to cut costs. When our order arrived there were a few things wrong. 1) The butter was salted instead of unsalted. 2) the butter was melted because the wrong shipping company was chosen 3) the cheese was processed slices and not real cheddar cheese blocks and 4) no invoice was provided although specifically requested. All in all not the end of the world but needless to say none of it was usable for what we needed it for. When we contacted the company they admitted their mistakes but informed us we could only choose one of their mistakes to have rectified. We took our beef to upper-management and they were embarrassed at what happened and promised to have it fixed immediately. Unfortunately, they flipped flopped the next day when they told us all butter has salt in it so it doesn't matter which kind we ordered and paid for and that we should use the processed cheese slices to make sandwiches. Of course if I had wanted to do either of those things then I would have made my order to reflect those desires, but we don't make sandwiches and don't see our use of processed cheese slices in the near or distant future to make soup and pizzas. We are still waiting for a resolution but it baffles me that a company would go the extra mile and pull out all the stops to push us to the verge of never using their products again instead of taking the easier path of righting their wrongs.

I have seen some companies go the opposite way with their service and it wows me all the more. Our coffee bean supplier routinely sends us free samples of beans to sample, knowing that if they show us some love we are more likely to pass the love back.

Scandalous

"Whereas it is most apparent that the multitude of Coffee Houses of late years set up and kept within this Kingdom…and the great resort of idle and disaffected persons to them, have produced very evil and dangerous effects; as well for that many tradesmen and others, do herein misspend much of their time, which might and probably would be employed in and about their Lawful Calling and Affairs; but also for that in such houses…divers, false, malicious, and scandalous reports are devised and spread abroad to the Defamation of His Majesty’s Government, and to the disturbance of the Peace and Quiet of the Realm; his Majesty hath though it fit and necessary, that the said Coffee Houses be (for the Future) put down and suppressed…”

~King Charles II of England, December 23, 1675
needless to say that didnt go over so well

The Teahouse, the Fruit Store, & the unlit Coffee shop

If I were to dabble in the realm of business consultancy I would make two recommendations to any small business that would listen here in Kunming.

Diversify- Please give us something unique and interesting. There are only so many teahouses and fruit stores that a community can realistically support. The complex where our coffee shop is located has 31 teahouses at last count. The rent in this complex is high because it has the potential to support many successful businesses, with its dwelling population of over 8000. But there are so many empty stalls, spaces for rent, and fledging businesses because everyone is trying to do the same thing. The complex has marketed itself as a shopping district but fails to live up to it because a potential shopper would and probably has been disappointed by the lack of things to shop for and the number of for sale or empty stores. In fact, there are now four "coffee shops" located within these premises up from one when we decided to open ours. One restaurant redesigned their store to focus more on coffee drinks giving up their very successful food menu in the process and one new coffee shop which opened this week. Which leads us to recommendation numero dos.

You gots to spend money to make money- You have to flat out spend the money before you can ever hope to make money. This new coffee shop has yet to turn on their lights. Many small business hold the philosophy of only lighting their store when a customer comes in. The flaw with this mentality is that if you don't turn on the lights and go all out then the customer is never going to venture in and give your product or service a try. The new coffee shop is saving a few cents a day because they never turn their interior lights on but losing waffles more because nobody is going to journey into the black abyss to drink coffee, 15 RMB ($2.1 USD) instant coffee of all things. We take all competition seriously and don't think lightly of any of our three nearest competitors but come on and at least step up to the plate and make us work a little.

1 KG

Today the Chicago Stuffed Deep Dish Pizza is introduced to Kunming. With the desire to find our food niche we have brought Chicago's famous stuffed Pizza. Invented at Pizzeria Uno in 1943 the Chicago Style Pizza usually has a layer of dough on the bottom, followed by toppings and cheese, covered with another layer of dough, and topped off with a tomato sauce. It is usually eaten with a fork and knife because the pieces are large and hard to handle with your hands.