Sorry for the long-ish post.

I’ve done a ton of research and I know there will be a lot of “don’t do it” comments. It’s kind of why I’m here though as I’m trying to decide if my plan makes sense enough to give it a go.

As a background, I’m a 47 year old healthcare worker who has burnt out from that job after 24 years. I need a change from illness and death.

I’m a frequent world traveller and rather unintentionally ended up visiting many of the top coffee producing countries in the world. I’m not big on trust attractions though, and I always make cafes and coffee houses a daily ritual during travel.

So I’ve experienced thousands of them and have always planned out what I felt was good or bad in them, as well as what made some special.

I currently have some freedom from my job and have time to look at a career change before I decide if I go back or not. I’m fortunate to have financial backing of some doctor friends who are looking for investment opportunities and like this idea.

I’m in a smallish white collar city of about 65000 with 105000 if you include the commuters from outside city limits.

It’s always been underserved in terms of quality coffee places. There’s a couple Starbucks in the mall areas and 2 places in the downtown that I’d consider competition. One of which does their own roasting, the other sources from a local roaster

Obviously, there’s a need to provide something unique to succeed.

There’s a few things I feel could set mine apart.
1- nothing in the downtown is open past 430-5pm. 2- Starbucks has moved away from seating altogether to be grab amd go.
3- the city has become quite multicultural and nobody is catering to that demographic.

My proposal is to open a coffee house and roastery. A place open until 10 or 11 in the downtown restaurant area. High quality coffee, tea, grab and go food and a good dessert selection. Building a daytime business and foot traffic clientele and the evening time after dinner/dating/study or working types.

Additionally, I’d include more international coffee styles in the menu like Turkish, Vietnamese and a few others. Loose leaf tea options as well.

I’ve considered starting out by working on the roasting side and maybe getting a larger home roaster or small commercial one to work with, while also practicing the needed barista skills and recipes.

The next step might be a coffee truck. The area lacks a coffee truck in the rotation and there’s always festival, sports tournaments and other things asking for trucks to set up at events. I think a daily rotation between the many office buildings would generate solid sales too.

This is a lower investment for startup and lower overhead option to get experience. If it goes well, then I could consider opening the brick and mortar version.

Does this seem like a logical plan going into it? Any advice?