Moscow Cafe Crawl

I’ve heard a lot of people say “Oh, I’d love to open a coffee shop!” I’ve even said it myself. Unfortunately, this isn’t as easy as it sounds. You need more money up-front than you think you do. And paying rent and buying all the fixtures and furniture is only the beginning I discovered. This is another part of my interview with Brenda, owner of Cafe Silos.

MCR: It seems like there have been other coffee shops that went out of business in the last year. There was Moxie Java. I think they didn’t pay their taxes?

Brenda: Well, I don’t think they are really to blame. You pay property tax first, you pay tax on all the personal property, so every teaspoon, every pen, everything that’s in the shop you pay tax on. So if they come in here and they find that you have a light that’s not on their list, you’re done for. You pay that to the county. Then you pay use tax, on the stuff that you’ve already paid property tax on you pay use tax. Then everyone you employee you pay social security, workman’s compensation, etc. And then there is liability insurance, and those insurances are huge. So that’s how Moxie got in trouble.

MCR: It’s amazing that anyone can run a shop!

Brenda: I think the main thing they couldn’t catch up on was the workman’s comp. Because if someone gets burned…it’s kind of a high risk business. All that steam…everything is hot!

MCR: I think that’s why we see coffee shops dealing in other areas. Coffee shop pubs. Coffee shop bookstores. Coffee shop bakerys. Coffee shop restaurants. Coffee shops with racks of CDs and gifts for sale. (I’ve even seen a coffee shop that was also the town pharmacy.) Once you’ve gone trough all the trouble of having a retail business, you might as well try to branch out a bit and bring in a few more sales.

Photo Credit

Filed under: Business, Interviews on September 28th, 2007