老外说——开个cafe 真的有那么容易吗?

【老外说】是一档以“采访”老外为主的节目，帮助大家更好的了解中西文化差异，一窥英国人、美国人日常生活。每周一更新。本栏目适合精听/泛听。可做听写练习。

有很多人都说自己的梦想是开一间咖啡馆，在大家心中，咖啡馆似乎是情怀漫的象征，今天采访到的这位老外就开起了一家咖啡馆，让我们来听听他的生意怎么样吧。

Gwen

The cafe that you have opened, how is the business now?

I’ve had one customer this morning.

Gwen

Really?

The plan is…Because I'm a little bit out of the way of the city. I’m about 1 kilometer from the busy area. So it's not an ideal spot for a cafe. But the homestay, the rooms are available now. So when people come and stay at the homestay, they drop the cafe. But my plan is just to open the cafe. It's a bar as well actually. I plan to open the cafe from 7:30 to 9:30 in the morning. Then the English club from 9:30 to 11:30, and then close, and then open again. Then I have the afternoon off for cycling, walking. Then English club 7:30 to 9:30.

But I won’t establish a lot of staff, to sort of run the cafe. I'm not gonna pay for that until we got a little bit busy and sort of do things myself. And my wife works in the city. So she only comes at the weekend, so it's not so easy to sort of do everything on your own in a place. And plus I have no experience of running the cafe. I have some experience running a bar, but the bar is a game that's more for the homesick customers and maybe your friends or whatever, maybe open just till 10:30 pm.So finish the English club at 9:30pm hopefully the cafe and the bar will be open with staff. And then I last an hour in the bar, last thing in the evening and then close at 11:00 pm.

Gwen

I know a lot of people, especially young people, they would like to open cafes or you know, like a bookstore with cafes, something like that. And idealistically that would be like a dream come true. It would be so tranquil a place for the cafe owner and also a beautiful spot for customers.

When it comes to idealism, idealism is not working with an income for me. Because I work so hard, all my life and I have been to so many different jobs. It's such a competitive place. So to get the business, we had to keep the prices down. And there's still a lot to do, basically.

Gwen

What made you have the idea of opening a cafe?

I think the main idea was more of a language center. That was the main aim. But to open a language center needs a lot of investment. Now, here, the cost of the rental, just for me to live here was, let's say, $400. Yeah, so for me to pay a bit more, they may be double and I can have a business as well. It's like multi-purpose objectives, multifaceted objectives. You have a nicer place to live, a bigger place to live.

I’ve always believed in backup plans, multiple sources of income, rather than one. There is a phrase in English, never have all your eggs in one basket. Practically all my life, I’ve always had alternative means of income. And I got such a broad span of work. I worked in the medical area, financial area, I worked on ships in the Indian Ocean, I worked in security, I traveled all of the world, I already sort of have no great desire to do any more traveling. Just settle.

And I was thinking this morning, it's quite idle, even if I don't have any customers, I can just go and sit down at my coffee in the morning, and that's what I like to do anyway. If I get some customers, that's a bonus.

Gwen

But as you said, the income was not as expected. So how do you deal with that?

If you got, like, I’ve got potential income for the rooms. We've already got four bookings already, and they’re gonna be here in a couple of weeks. We've got bookings for February during the holiday period already, about three or four bookings. And we’ve only just started it. So I anticipate, I think we'll get busier, as we get more professional and more organized, plus we could do the restaurant. This is a big realm. This is the realm I‘m gonna use initially, so I’ve got these tables put in so you can get maybe four or five people around each table. And if it's not gonna work, then you can try the restaurants, but I'm not a chef.

Gwen

The cafe serves as an English studying center as well as a cafe.

The outside, that’s more of a cafe area.

Gwen

Do you have any staff?

Not yet.

Gwen

Just you and your wife.

Nobody's gonna come until we've got the signage (标识) and we've got to made the Facebook thing set up and the website set up and the marketing begins. Once we have this big sign put outside, something like this, right? Near the roof near the top floor, a very bright sign. Once people see that they'll be curious and they’ll come and have a look. So maybe they’ll come in, and if they come in, maybe they’ll buy a coffee.

Gwen

Apparently you make the coffee yourself.

Yeah, but just some basics. Just some basic kind myself at the moment, soft drinks and stuff. I'm thinking about the pricing. So they'll be likable to pay for 2 hours to join in in those time periods. Very cheap. Or they can pay a monthly membership and that’s up to 60 hours of tuition per month. That's my plan. If it works, then I’ll be achieving a higher level of happiness.

Gwen

So talking about happiness, what do you think can make you happy the most in your life?

The main thing, which is being up and down all my life is maintaining a good level of physical fitness.

Gwen

Do you work out often?

Because I’ve been so busy in this room, there’s hole of leakage . So the renovating contains to just proof the place. Rather than pay somebody to do it, I wasn't sure how I wanted it to be done, I thought I did a little step by step. And did it by myself. So all week every day I was working. And I think I lost a bit of weight by just doing the physical work. I made the shelves myself in the bar. And I created, see the white paneled wall here. That's just to stop the dirt from coming in, because it's quite breezy here. And a lot of dirt floating.

Gwen

You did all the decorating?

That's just plastic paneling (嵌板). All that was open and you can see the shadow. It was just metal railings behind. Same with these gates here. It's making it a lot cleaner, and I don't have to wipe the surface every five minutes.

Gwen

Because it’s sport.

Yeah. So cafe as well. Hopefully, it's gonna be comfortable. But nothing happened overnight unless you got a lot of money and a lot of professionals to help you. I wouldn't call myself a professional. I do know a lot of things, but what we call Jack of all trades (万事通，杂而不精的人), I can do a bit of this and a bit of that.

你有没有想过开一家咖啡馆或是书店呢？

大家还想听“老外”说些什么？欢迎留言哦

-等你很久啦！-