Farm shop/cafe

[ploughman1963]

Been there and bought the t shirt
Make sure its something you really want to do
Pick your target market and price accordingly
expect a lot of people who will come and ask for a 2 cups of tea and 1 scone to share then sit there all day.
Don`t expect to have much time left for farming
expect to get ripped off by staff, or have them not turn up on the busiest days.

I could go on

Just think carefully before you go ahead

My problem was I dont really like dealing with the general public

Our diversification is not a farm shop but along similar lines and I can empathise with the above sentiments completely!!

 

[Goodbeef]

We have a farm shop. Been going about 12 years now. We are near ormskirk Lancashire. Full butchers shop with delicatessen and fruit and veg. Cafe is next on the list to set up. We have just won 'Meat traders journal' 'farm shop of the year' category for the second time. If you are up this direction any time you are more than welcome to come and have a look round and ask any questions you may have. You can find us on Facebook and our website under Taylors Farm Shop. Good luck with your plans if you do it right you won't look back.

 

[Wink]

Our diversification is not a farm shop but along similar lines and I can empathise with the above sentiments completely!!

Likewise here @Dman2. Ours opened this year running up alongside a whole list of other small businesses under one umbrella. So far I hate to say it as it sounds ungrateful but it's been the worst thing to happen to me and I do actually enjoy selling to the public (have done farm retail/markets for many years) It is only small and has potential of course but it is a big tie has put in a whole load of extra work on me and everyone else on top of everything else leaving less time for those parts of the business, less farming, more paperwork/more stress. Literally no time and I had very little before. To be a success it needs someone to drive it forward concentrating solely on it but then something else needs to drop. In time I'm sure that will happen.

My advice would be really think about it, get plenty of experience, really look at what your selling point will be and your market. Have a plan b as it will be a huge investment potentially? Saying that I'm sure if you want to make it work you will. All the best.

 

[Dman2]

We have a farm shop. Been going about 12 years now. We are near ormskirk Lancashire. Full butchers shop with delicatessen and fruit and veg. Cafe is next on the list to set up. We have just won 'Meat traders journal' 'farm shop of the year' category for the second time. If you are up this direction any time you are more than welcome to come and have a look round and ask any questions you may have. You can find us on Facebook and our website under Taylors Farm Shop. Good luck with your plans if you do it right you won't look back.

I don`t want to sound like the grumpy old git on here
But
We had a very successful farm shop, open 4 days a week with people queuing up to get in
One day we decided to have a run round and see what the competition were up to.
They all had Cafe`s tea rooms etc full of people.
So we thought if we open a cafe we would have a shop full of customers and hopefully a cafe full of customers.
Wrong
Our normal shop customers seemed to drift away, as the cafe brigade moved in, and we ended up like all the others with a cafe full of customers which earned us very little margin and an empty shop.
Oh and a yard full of cars that seemed to stay all afternoon.

 

[Goodbeef]

Sounds like a Sunday in all the farm shop cafes we have visited. That's why we are figuring out the best way forward. One things for sure, you can never visit too many other places for ideas!

 

[Wink]

That's interesting what you found about the café. Getting it right seems to be the difficult bit. Ours seems to be more /village shop as we don't have one and that seems to be what a lot of locals use it for - money but not all necessarily the high quality meat shop and will just pick up a single pint of milk or an ice cream....