In praise of Wagamamma

Why i liken Wagamama to Starbucks is that it's a guaranteed 6/10 experience. it's a safe, inoffensive option. It's never going to be truly awful, but it's also never going to leave you gushing about the place. For some reason Britain seems obsessed with this type of experience - everywhere you look are chain pubs, chain restaurants, chain coffee shops.

Wagamama isn't bad, but if you've grown up eating authentic Asian/Oriental food - and I'm lucky enough to come from a city where amazing and fairly authentic Chinese, Malaysian, Indonesian, Japanese, Vietnamese and Thai are all easily available - then Waga's is a pretty bland imitation. You can also get much better noodles at plenty of places in Chinatown.

This is the same way that people who like good coffee (myself included) feel about Starbucks.

well said, Britain is lame.........going for the easy option, unadventurous, risk averse, give me the authentic any day. business backs it up as well, or else why would so many good ideas never go into the streets?
In New Zealand small businesses are given incentives to try new ideas,
went to an amazing coffee shop there once, Auckland- coffee/music shop witha huge long counter, you are encouraged to go in, browse c.d,s get some to preview listen to whilst having your coffee (you have control of the c.d playing etc)--
brilliant idea! lush coffee! wheres the shit like that here?

Rough Trade East?

Going out on a limb here but is Auckland cheaper than central London in terms of business rates, rent, wages, etc etc?

dunno, but everythings relative innit? its the culture innit............

Well, not really. If you sell something like coffee at £2.00 per unit then you are making a large profit, but your costs are high- so you need to sell a lot of them.

So whilst coffee shops do have seating, newspapers and so forth they'd prefer you to drink up and move on (see Busaba) so they can sell someone else a coffee.

If your overheads are smaller then you can afford to have a more relaxed atmosphere as the pressure is not on to get people out, in fact it might make sense to keep them in your business buying something every now and again, as opposed to selling a new customer something every 13 seconds.

So yes, it's a cultural thing, but imposed by the costs of the location more than anything else I would think.

Nah, coffee shops don't suffer so much from the problem, IMO, as their business is mostly takeout.

Issue for coffee shops is that the market is saturated with chain shops who have a good profile (ie. enough marketing $$ to create one) and comparatively lower costs due to economies of scale in buying everything from beans to milk to cups.

So as a newbie coffee shop, you have to stomach (a) high rents of a good location, (b) strong competition from established players in terms of price and customer loyalty. Your best bet to make a profit (or even break even) would be to do a "Mr Coffee" and sell it off the back of a moped to cut the shop rent bill. Coffee shops ain't making money from the dudes who buy a cappuccino and spend 3hrs drinking it...

I saw a girl walk into a Cafe Nero the other day, only she tripped up the steps. I thought about pointing and laughing but then thought 'Nah, be cruel to Mocha'

Sorry.

Coffee shops ain't making money from the dudes who buy a cappuccino and spend 3hrs drinking it...

That's my point in one line.

agreed with many points here ^^^, worked in coffee shops both here and in Oz.
how can it be that there are delis in Oz and NZ that are small, local businesses that thrive? perhaps because they rate doing ordinary things in an extraordinary way highly- and rents etc must be comparitively cheaper then.
this country is prepared to put up with any shit these days,
the stuff that gets slopped in cups and called latte often now is............ desperate............

That's my point in one line.

Sure, but my point is related to this comment:

they'd prefer you to drink up and move on (see Busaba) so they can sell someone else a coffee.

Some loafer stretching out his coffee is only a very small marginal cost to the coffee shop, since you don't need to sit down to buy a coffee - most customers takeaway. Once the company is paying the rent for the seating area, they won't give a toss how long customers loaf for.

Seemed marginally relevant. Fucking love Mr Tourette.

cool^ is that the same cartoonist that does the little ones in sat grauniad guide?
good twisted gags

I suppose you could lump all the seating area in a coffee shop in as cost of sale i.e. people are much more likely to buy a coffee from you if they can a) see other people ostensibly enjoying a coffee and b) have the option to sit down.

So once people are in they are in, but I would suggest that once every table is full people who want to sit down would go elsewhere.

At that point the people dragging their heels are starting to cost you money.

Possibly because Busaba use actual Thai chefs- they are recruited in Thailand and flown over, as part of their renumeration they are given a flight to and from Thailand once a year.

If your name is Dave and you were born in Surrey you are not going to get a job in the kitchen.

surely you mean Remuneration

I demand a recount.

I suppose you could lump all the seating area in a coffee shop in as cost of sale i.e. people are much more likely to buy a coffee from you if they can a) see other people ostensibly enjoying a coffee and b) have the option to sit down.

So once people are in they are in, but I would suggest that once every table is full people who want to sit down would go elsewhere.

At that point the people dragging their heels are starting to cost you money.

I'd be more inclined to view it as a marketing cost. Agree with the (a) and (b), but IMO the creation of the "right" atmosphere is marketing, not bus ops.

complicated isnt it?
dont think it matters turning tables in coffee shops so much, as long as you are making consistant drinks to sell.
if you are doing something exceptional then people will wait--look at any really successful independent restaurant- they are always booked- full and people will wait because its good quality, so you could argue that people sitting there for ages- if theyre regulars that come every day are the backbone of the place.(getting muddy here sorry)
the problem is that the biggest corporates will come in knowing what it will cost them to completely take over- and how long it will take them- location is all and there business models are fixed on that.
vote with youre feet- support smaller business, get to know youre shops- if they are good they will survive.