http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf So you'd like to get out of the office and meet someone for lunch, but you don't necessarily want to purchase a lunch everyday! BYOL is a cafe that allows people to bring their own lunch and enjoy it in a cafe type atmosphere without the obligation of buying anything. A number of microwaves and toaster ovens would be available for free use to heat up last night's leftovers. This cafe would sell regular lunch items like soups, salads, and sandwiches as well as gourmet coffee, teas and desserts. That way people could both bring lunch as well as buy lunch. Outside of the lunch crowd there would certainly be other options to generate revenue such as a night time coffee house with local bands etc At this point I feel that people would be able to both bring their own lunch and purchase lunch. That way the cafe could accommodate everyone and make some profit in the process. Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:52:05 -0600 advice http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#advice2661 http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#advice2661 Neat concept. Would a person be allowed to bring other restaurant food in? Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:52:44 -0600 advice http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#advice2637 http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#advice2637 Oops, I meant to write: I think it would be great to...be able to bring lunch or have the option to buy. Best of luck! Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:26:38 -0600 advice http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#advice2636 http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#advice2636 I think it would be able to bring lunch, or have the option to buy lunch too. And free Wi Fi gets my vote. It would be REALLY great if the food you offered was all healthy, organic food! Best of luck! Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:25:53 -0600 advice http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#advice2635 http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#advice2635 Suggestions to allow purchasing lunch is a great idea. Have you done some informal market research to see if people would like something like this. Often, people I know go out not only to meet up with friends, but also for a change from cooking and bringing their lunch. The first thing I would do is detail out financial information. Unfortunately, $10,000 won't get you very far in the restaurant business, so it's important to get down all the details you can. Work with someone familiar with the restaurant business. At a minimum, estimate your rent, utilities, employee, and other monthly expenses. See what the minimum amount of traffic and revenue per customer is needed just to break even. This will serve as a good gut check to see if the idea is anywhere near viable. Also, when it comes to customer count, customer purchases, be conservative. When it comes to expenses, be more generous. Having been in the food / restaurant business, it's always easy to overestimate revenue initially and underestimate expense. Sat, 14 Jun 2008 15:21:44 -0600 advice http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#advice2630 http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#advice2630 Maybe you can highlight the fact that it is BYOL but not really restrict BUY lunch option as well. Keep it flexible. However, stick to the original plan of beverages, desserts and light snack because BYOL is the catch at the same time it feels not practical or inflexible to restrict traffic. also, you may want to pitch this idea to larger corporations to incorporate it as a section in their food court or allot an area to their existing boring cafetaria because there are many office goers who carry their own lunch. Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:56:21 -0600 advice http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#advice2564 http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#advice2564 Thanks for the advise Shepp, I think advertisements would be very easy to acquire for this venture and it would definitely help to balance my revenue stream. Tue, 13 May 2008 14:06:24 -0600 advice http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#advice1912 http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#advice1912 I'm thinking I'd like to make Wi-Fi available for free to people at the cafe, does anyone know about the costs associated with making that service available? Tue, 13 May 2008 10:00:59 -0600 challenge http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#challenge1678 http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#challenge1678 So you'd like to get out of the office and meet someone for lunch, but you don't necessarily want to purchase a lunch everyday! BYOL is a cafe that allows people to bring their own lunch and enjoy it in a cafe type atmosphere without the obligation of buying anything. A number of microwaves and toaster ovens would be available for free use to heat up last night's leftovers. This cafe would sell regular lunch items like soups, salads, and sandwiches as well as gourmet coffee, teas and desserts. That way people could both bring lunch as well as buy lunch. Outside of the lunch crowd there would certainly be other options to generate revenue such as a night time coffee house with local bands etc Fri, 09 May 2008 10:31:17 -0600 comment http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#comment7030 http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#comment7030 So you'd like to get out of the office and meet someone for lunch, but you don't necessarily want to purchase a lunch everyday! BYOL is a cafe that allows people to bring their own lunch and enjoy it in a cafe type atmosphere without the obligation of buying anything. A number of microwaves and toaster ovens would be available for free use to heat up last night's leftovers. This cafe would sell regular lunch items like soups, salads, and sandwiches as well as gourmet coffee, teas and desserts. That way people could both bring lunch as well as buy lunch. Outside of the lunch crowd there would certainly be other options to generate revenue such as a night time coffee house with local bands etc Thu, 08 May 2008 22:26:38 -0600 comment http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#comment7014 http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#comment7014 I think this idea is good, but I also think you need to take into consideration your revenue model. Selling coffee and tea is always popular and will generate some limited income. What about showing Local advertisements for surrounding businesses on LCD tv's, hanging poster size ad's on the walls? Make it a community friendly place as well, and offer certain ad time/spots for local clubs and gatherings. Thu, 08 May 2008 20:49:02 -0600 advice http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#advice1843 http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#advice1843 So you'd like to get out of the office and meet someone for lunch, but you don't necessarily want to purchase a lunch everyday! BYOL is a cafe that allows people to bring their own lunch and enjoy it in a cafe type atmosphere without the obligation of buying anything. A number of microwaves and toaster ovens would be available for free use to heat up last night's leftovers. This cafe would sell regular lunch items like soups, salads, and sandwiches as well as gourmet coffee, teas and desserts. That way people could both bring lunch as well as buy lunch. Outside of the lunch crowd there would certainly be other options to generate revenue such as a night time coffee house with local bands etc Thu, 08 May 2008 14:16:33 -0600 comment http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#comment7004 http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#comment7004 So you'd like to get out of the office and meet someone for lunch, but you don't necessarily want to purchase a lunch everyday! BYOL is a cafe that allows people to bring their own lunch and enjoy it in a cafe type atmosphere without the obligation of buying anything. A number of microwaves and toaster ovens would be available for free use to heat up last night's leftovers. This cafe would sell regular lunch items like soups, salads, and sandwiches as well as gourmet coffee, teas and desserts. That way people could both bring lunch as well as buy lunch. Outside of the lunch crowd there would certainly be other options to generate revenue such as a night time coffee house with local bands etc Thu, 08 May 2008 12:21:02 -0600 comment http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#comment7000 http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#comment7000 So you'd like to get out of the office and meet someone for lunch, but you don't necessarily want to purchase a lunch everyday! BYOL is a cafe that allows people to bring their own lunch and enjoy it in a cafe type atmosphere without the obligation of buying anything. A number of microwaves and toaster ovens would be available for free use to heat up last night's leftovers. This cafe would sell regular lunch items like soups, salads, and sandwiches as well as gourmet coffee, teas and desserts. That way people could both bring lunch as well as buy lunch. Outside of the lunch crowd there would certainly be other options to generate revenue such as a night time coffee house with local bands etc Thu, 08 May 2008 12:14:41 -0600 comment http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#comment6997 http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#comment6997 I know there would certainly be people utilizing the space without buying anything, so determining what the average expenditure per person would be to predict my monthly cash flow would be difficult, especially bc I don't believe anyone has ever attempted a model like this before. Suggestions? Thu, 08 May 2008 07:21:36 -0600 challenge http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#challenge1630 http://ideablob.com/ideas/rss/2220-BYOL-Bring-Your-Own-Lunch-Caf#challenge1630