Dandelion Communitea Cafe

After the launch of our online Community Supported Enterprise (CSE) program, we’ve gotten few really good questions. Here’s the first one:

Question: What does long-term viability look like? That is, if business picked up to what it was a year ago, would the business be able to carry itself?

Answer: Yes, we believe it is possible to become a sustainable business in all ways, for a couple of reasons and under a few conditions.  They say it takes 3-5 years to start turning a profit in this sector & we were just on the cusp of that when the economy started downhill. Normally a trip to the bank for a credit line increase would solve our concerns quickly and we would keep moving without having to worry our customers, but the banks are not passing on the economic stimulus to small businesses like ours. In fact, the $12,00o we need is not a huge amount in the business world, but it can seem like a mountain come payday.

I believe we can make it, even in a down economy, as we still have a bustling cafe whose values people are attracted to more and more everyday. Folks in our community are making the conscious choice right now to support small & independent. They are shifting their dollars away from chains and franchises and voting to keep the businesses that add so much value to their community alive and well.

Good intentions alone will not keep our doors open, though, and we understand that we must stay on top of our game to keep customers happy when there are so many great places to chose from in the area.

How can we do that? Increasing our capacity with covered patios is an important step that will make us viable as a evening venue and allow us to cater to the many requests we get for baby & bridal showers, engagement dinners & working lunches. This measure will also help increase attendance at evening events and allow us to schedule them more regularly, as rain is one of our biggest risks when we rely on the unprotected outdoor space for their success.

Also, we recognized early this year that we were caught in a tight spot with our management: too much for one person to handle well but hard pressed to invest in bringing on additional talent to help grow the business. We took the plunge and brought Greg on, who has been with us six months now and has focused on cost controls and fine tuning our systems, which allowed me (the formerly exhausted sole manager) to focus on bookkeeping, marketing and business development. We compliment each and together work on daily management and staff development. With this match up, we’ve seen success in many areas, even while making adjustments for the economic impact of our times.

We are also in the process of creating new menu items, have some cool things in the pipeline for improving the ambiance and are working with key suppliers to get our costs down even further.

I hope this answers the question – please feel free to leave a comment to continue the discussion.

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Filed under: FAQ, Sustain Program, Update