Giulia Mastrantonio

CGS2100

café Verde
Biz Café Report

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10/16/21 Giulia Mastrantonio, Justin Bowling, Faizaan Hirani, and Imani Mesilien
Table of Content

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Introduction............................................................................................................................2
Major decisions.......................................................................................................................2
Surprises.................................................................................................................................3
Key changes............................................................................................................................4
Chance to start over................................................................................................................4
Key takeaways........................................................................................................................5

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10/16/21 Giulia Mastrantonio, Justin Bowling, Faizaan Hirani, and Imani Mesilien
Introduction
Café Verde is the new small business in a college town community. My partners and I have
worked hard to open an all-organic coffee shop that can suit the needs of almost any customer.
Our shop prioritizes using recycled materials and environmentally friendly cups and straws.
Saving our earth and providing sustainable ways of living are important to our company.

We are located on the corner of 42nd Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, right nearby a college.
Due to the proximity of the university, our shop attracted the younger generations along with
young adults who enjoy a cup of coffee. Café Verdes environment is ideal for studying, we have
a very serene store layout with minimalistic furniture. Our shops ambience is also calming with
a variety of plants and mellow music. Our store has recently added free high-speed Wi-Fi for all
our customers to enjoy while enjoying our atmosphere.

The main goal of our coffee shop is to provide organic coffee in a sustainable way, along with a
welcoming atmosphere for our customers to enjoy. We will achieve these goals by keeping a
good reputation with high standards for our coffee.

Major decisions
When we first started our company, my partners and I had to navigate new concepts to create
a stable business. Our hours of operation and pricing varied many times until we found a sweet
spot. During the first week, our hours were 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. everyday. These hours were decent
for the first week but change for longer hours were needed. We changed the closing time from
8 p.m. to 10 p.m. instead and it worked in our favor; our profit increased with longer hours. Due
to longer hours, more employees were needed. We shifted from 18 workers in the beginning to
30 workers and saw drastic changes in employee satisfaction.

Our employee’s starting pay was 14 dollars an hour, which began above minimum wage. As
time progressed with our business, we noticed that we stood at a good hourly wage. We
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10/16/21 Giulia Mastrantonio, Justin Bowling, Faizaan Hirani, and Imani Mesilien
decided not to change the pay. In our future, our projected hourly pay will increase to 16
dollars an hour as our hours become longer. When changing the hours, the demand for new
employees and managers will increase. At Café Verde, we realize the importance of paying our
workers at the right price that is fair for their hard work and labor.

Another important decision to be made was the pricing of our coffee. Our small coffee began at
$3.00, medium at $3.85, and large at $4.25. Our current prices have changed to a small being
$3.25, medium at $3.95, and large at $4.25. These price changes have happened in effect of our
profit. We have increased our income by changing the medium price to $3.95, it has led people
to pay the extra 30 cents for a large coffee instead.

Lastly, our advertising and sales have helped us increase revenue. The opening week of our
shop, we were featured on the radio 10 times per day. Weekly, we spent $2,800 on radio
promos. This was a smart tactic for new customers the first week, but as we were becoming
well-known, we deducted the radio promotions to just 5 times a day instead. Our 2 for 1 cups
of coffee brought in lots of profit the first week and the weeks continuing, we will keep this
promotion for the time being.

Surprises
Opening our coffee shop has led to many unexpected challenges. Knowing how to run a
business is a learning experience that comes with knowledge from experience. One could only
go so far by just reading a book about starting your own company, what really teaches
someone is trial and error.

When my partners and I first started Café Verde, we were unexperienced. Slowly but surely, we
got the hang of things. One of our biggest challenges was finding a fair price and a reasonable
set of hours. With pricing, we based it off typical coffee shops like Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts.
This is what the consumer base is accustomed to, so it worked in our favor. Our next task was
figuring out good hours. In the beginning, we chose not to open on weekends. Many customers

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10/16/21 Giulia Mastrantonio, Justin Bowling, Faizaan Hirani, and Imani Mesilien
prefer studying on weekends or enjoying brunch with their friends and collages. We quickly
came to the realization that paying for weekend managers and employees was worth it for the
company’s profit.

What helped the most for our company’s “surprises” was the outcome of our rankings after our
weekly decisions. Seeing what our customers enjoyed, our profit, and our employee satisfaction
helped shift our next decision period. Café Verde had been in the top five ranking for the first
few weeks, when our ranking started to go down, I had lost some motivation. This was a
learning curve for me because I had to internalize that it is okay to not always be number one.
This will be motivation to try even harder to get Café Verde to a comfortable sweet spot
between customer and employee satisfaction.

Key changes
There were a few key changes our coffee shop needed to see growth. The first one being
number of employees. We started out with a high number of employees, 22 to be exact. For
the first week, this seemed to be too much. As our time progressed with the business, we
needed to keep this number while also growing it even more. For the first week it was too
many because we did not have cliental, but now we have settled for 30 and it has been working
well.
The next key change was opening on weekends, this increased our flow of customers and
income. At first, we were losing money due to the hiring of new managers and employees, this
is because our managers are paid a weekly salary of $850, but the money has caught up to us
due to the abundance of customers. After making beneficial key changes, we started seeing
more positive numbers for Café Verde.

Chance to start over

Another thing I wish I did was knowing more knowledge about starting a business. Many
problems could have been prevented if I was wiser about certain decision making. Preventing
more problems could have helped the Café rank higher among the others. Although we are not
the highest ranking, it is okay because we have more weeks for successful decision making. It
will give my group and I a challenge and it will make the simulation more interesting. It will
cause us to think more intensely about future choices. This will only lead to more motivation to
make Café Verde the most popular coffee shop in the area.

Key takeaways

This Café simulation has already taught me a lot about the ups and downs about running a
business. It is a lot harder than it looks, the simulation gives us everything we need. Pretend
money, a range of employees, promotions, a location, rent, and a supply of coffee. I cannot
imagine having to run a business in real life because the money lost really comes out of your
pocket, and sometimes it is money you must pay back. It is a lot of stress running a business
because important decisions are what a company must rely on for profit. This simulation of
Café Verde has given me a lot of respect for those who start their own small business, it is
challenging but it can be the most rewarding thing for those who become successful.

I am thankful for this BizCafe experience so far because it has showed me the process of
starting a business and all the decisions that must be made in a short time. It has also showed
me that it is important to stay flexible in the choices your company makes. If your shop has a
bad week, you can always make changes to progress in the next week. It is all dependent on
trial and error. Trying new things can make a tremendous change in your company’s profit and
the happiness of your workers and customers. At the beginning I was too consumed on how my

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10/16/21 Giulia Mastrantonio, Justin Bowling, Faizaan Hirani, and Imani Mesilien
Café placed on the weekly ranking, I have now adjusted my visions of the café and have noticed
if you are just focused on the goals of the company things will work out better in the long run. It
is still important to rank high to show that your decisions are helping one improve, but it is
more important to see progress than seeing instant success.

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10/16/21 Giulia Mastrantonio, Justin Bowling, Faizaan Hirani, and Imani Mesilien