I have considered starting a coffee cart business outside of my brothers new Specialized bike store in downtown Mountain View, CA. The front of the shop gets heavy traffic and there is a place for tables with umbrellas. There is also a nearby park. When he goes to bike events, the coffee cart would go with us. This would also be a great source for sales.

Does anyone have any experience or advice about the coffee cart business? I don't even know where to start. I love coffee and love the idea of starting my own line of coffee rather than using an existing brand (although this is more work and there is more risk of customers not accepting my brand). What are start up costs? Where do I purchase a coffee cart? Liability? Etc.

Thanks!

Blending your own would be fun. One of my friends did this for years and he experimented on me to get my opinions of the flavors. A coffee cart is good business, BUT you do need to be sure you have the right pedestrian traffic volumes to make it pay well.

As a ROUGH rule 2% of traffic will buy. Do a 'customer count' and try to find a happy average figure for the daily traffic at your preferred location. That should tell you approximately how many coffees you will sell per day. Get a spreadsheet and work out your expected daily takings and from there, your net.

Find a coffee cart that is operating somewhere and count customers walking by and those buying. It's easy if you have a hand counter. Click it for the walking by, and mentally count the buyers.

You should reasonably expect the same buyer percentage figure for your business.

You could try either adding juices to the stand or selling only juices.

I have seen orange juice sellers in VERY BUSY places gross over $10,000 weekly. BUT the first one I saw was in a VERY BUSY place. I did a customer count and was most surprised to see the figures.

Don't think in terms of 'a coffee cart' (CC). If the first one goes right, then get a second CC in another spot. But long before you even think of getting a second CC, scout out a suitable spot using the customer counting technique.

You might want to have donuts and the other usual stuff too.

Save your money and pick up a second-hand CC.

Let us know how you go with it.

Since you have a "96 page e-book ... full of my signature secrets and methods that have worked for me"

WHY DON'T YOU TELL US???

I found this link:

http://www.coffeeforums.com

Instead of promoting your own brand, you may want to establish a partnership with a coffee roaster that is local. A couple of them that come to mind is Wolf Coffee, located in Rohnert Park, CA and I think it's called Dave and Tom's Coffee. They have their own cups so that they are recognizable. I know that Mocha Momma's in Rohnert Park uses Dave and Tom's, and they have a very recognizable cup (almost grateful dead -esque).

Look them up and give them a call.

Good Luck.

Not sure if I should even respond to your sarcastic comment...

If you took at look, the the e-book it is about marketing and advertising on Craigslist, which is quite different from the advise I am seeking. If I knew all the answers I wouldn't be here.

If you don't have anything constructive to add to this thread, then resist the urge.

Thanks so much Machine and CustomerTrend. Really great advice. I'm obviously in the very beginning stages. I'm going to work on a feasibility study and incororate your thoughts. I'll let you know how it goes..

I think you can do all that with CafePress. I didn't really get all that far into researching it, but it seemed pretty good from what I saw. Not any kind of magic pill, since it would still require all the usual marketing typicaly for any online business.

CafePress did seem to offer a good way to distribute a certain group of products.