We decided to open a cafe for a day. This happened
If you're a knowledge worker and ever dreamed of doing something like this, read along. This is a full story/guide of how we approached this. #experiments #cooking
Look, chances are you (the person reading this) are from tech. Most people in my bubble are.
I noticed one thing that’s common among us — we oftentimes dream about starting physical/offline businesses. A cafe, a restaurant, a tea place, a shop — you name it. Whenever I’m in a tech circle, the discussion always comes to this.
What’s your “physical” dream like?
Well, I’m here to tell you that you don’t need to dream about it forever (or even decades — until you quit your tech job and retire). And no, I don’t mean committing to and opening a proper restaurant. I mean launching a PoC (clearly a tech term) by doing a test collaboration/launch to see how it goes and if you (and your customers) even like it or not!
Here’s a story of how we (me and my fiancée Kate) did it.
Hopefully, you’ll be able to learn something from our experience — and maybe I’ll inspire some of you to do something similar!
In this post, I cover:
What was (and still is!) our dream like?
How did we approach testing this idea?
What we did step-by-step?
How did it go? What did we learn?
Now that we tested this idea, what’s next?
What was (and still is!) our dream like? Skip this part if you’re interested in the actual test.
I’m a big breakfast foodie. As a matter of fact, I cooked thousands of breakfasts over the last few years, and based on the feedback of those who ate them, I’m very good at that. Like 9/10 good.
And here’s where I need to confess — some years ago (3, maybe?) we invented a recipe for the best breakfast ever.
I’m talking cottage cheese waffles. Here’s what they look like.
There are 2 main differences between them from any other waffles you’ve tried over the years:
They’re much healthier because they’re mostly protein. The main ingredient is actually not flour, but cottage cheese.
They’re not sweet (although they can be) and are a proper meal, not an indulgence. You top them with quality ingredients that make you full (and feel good about yourself).
We’ve been making them for years now for ourselves as well as for our friends/family when they came to our brunches, but have never shown them to others up until May 2023.
I’ve had the idea that these waffles are perfect for some kind of takeaway concept. They’re easy to make, they’re fast to make, they can be eaten by hand, and there can be endless topping potential. You don’t need much to set everything up — it can be as easy as a food truck.
How did we approach testing this idea?
You know me, I’m a tech entrepreneur (if you’re new and reading this, more about me here: https://www.ednevsky.blog/p/introducing-ednevsky-blog), but I’ve never done any offline business and don’t plan on being involved operationally in one any time soon. This is a perfect combo for never ever trying this idea and talking about it while hanging with people.
But when you have it on your mind, things happen. It’s called serendipity.
In our case, it was the following:
We visited the “Breakfast Fair” that happens in Warsaw almost every weekend during the summertime — and thought about potentially finding a way to book a stand there for a day. But that felt complicated — we probably would have needed to deal with all kinds of permits and legal stuff, not to mention the place prep.
Friends of ours Igor and Alina have opened their own dessert place in Warsaw (Soulmates, previously Soul Kitchen) — and we’re loyal customers, visiting them every other week.
Once we saw that they hosted a collab with another cook — offering sour quiches as a complimentary thing along with their desserts. We tried them, they were great, and they inspired us.
That’s when the idea was born — we can partner with Soulmates and test open our cafe for a day using their premises. My birthday was coming up (30th of May) and I felt like that was a fun date to organize this around. Kind of like a party, but more casual — open for everybody, and with no rules or expectations. Just come, say his, order a waffle, and continue your business.
The rest was, well… History.
Here’s what we did step-by-step:
We confirmed the collab with Soulmates. Fixed the conditions (they are taking care of everything business-wise, after all), the date, and the plan. Guys were super supportive and we’re very thankful for that! That was somewhere around a few weeks prior?
There were a bunch of questions we terrorized them with, trying to estimate how much people would want a waffle (we chose Saturday) and how much of the ingredients we needed to prep. We estimated to have around 50-75 orders (waffles, of course) throughout the day.
We needed to prepare.
First — to create a brand and social media posters. We floated with a number of names and branding choices and eventually settled on Waffle Collective. Slick, modern, with Berlin vibes.
Our poster Second — to plan our menu. Up until this point we’ve cooked hundreds of variations and we needed to choose what we’d offer and do a very precise calculation of what we need to buy and how we need to cook.
Printed menus Third — to procure the ingredients. We decided to go to the store where all of the businesses shop (you need an open firm to shop there).
Shopping Fourth — to gather the tools. We had a waffle maker, but we needed more. Luckily, our friend Liza agreed to help, and not only gave us her waffle maker (making it two!) but also came to help us on D-day (kudos to her — she did a brilliant job!)
The tools
How did it go? What did we learn?
“We came, we saw, we conquered” — on the D-day (May 27th, 2023), we were there 15 minutes before Soulmates opening. Prepped our ingredients, workplace, and good mood.
It was tiring, but an amazing experience.
We ended up selling 69 waffles, which was slightly more than we expected, and the majority of them weren’t our friends!
What was important is that we intentionally didn’t want to profit from this collab, so the surplus (minus the cost of ingredients) went to charity.
People really loved them. There wasn’t one person who didn’t finish their portion. A bunch of them shared this on their social media.
The experience was super fun — from planning out the event (the recipes, the food to buy, the trip to the store, the creative brainstorming — everything) to actually cooking.
We’ve had 2 surges — one around 11 (I think) and the second around lunch (13), where we were thinking we wouldn’t make it, but the rest of the time was fine.
At one point there were like 8 simultaneous orders and we really felt like these guys from “The Bear”! Clearly, to be cooking all day in conditions like these you need to love what you’re doing.
What was unexpected was that we didn’t get to casually chat with people most of the time — because we needed to cook! So it’s not like you can cook and socialize simultaneously — it’s either or.
Worth noting that the Soulmate folks loved how it went too.
Now that we tested this idea, what’s next?
I think we should actually consider turning this concept into a real takeaway spot, first testing the demand and unit economics in one place (let’s say here in Warsaw — or elsewhere), and then, potentially, aiming for the franchise. Why not? There are so many unhealthy and objectively bad places, that a healthy and cool place would certainly be a good fit.
We eat these waffles probably weekly, and I can easily see someone getting as hooked up on them as we are.
However, as I already mentioned, I’m not the type of guy who has the experience or desire to oversee this operationally, but rather to finance this as an investor along with a few of my friends.
So if you know someone who might be interested in collaborating on this, please let me know or reach out. I’d love to chat! Especially if they have experience in the food business or are willing to do the operational part of running such a place.
Hopefully, this was a helpful walkthrough of how we opened a cafe a day. Anyone can do this, really. So if you have a similar dream — go ahead and plan a test/PoC of yours. You can do this, I know.
Also, I think by this point a lot of you are hungry and/or want the recipe. Happy to share it — please follow Waffle Collective on Instagram and slide into DMs — I’ll send everyone a copy.
