Author: Chris Brown, Director, Turpin Smale Catering Consultants
Cafes are rather like good exhibitions – the best have real passion, plus good organisation, to come alive and make money. The downside is that cafes are not static exhibits – food goes off, labour costs can ruin your budget and customers rightly don’t appreciate queues, poor quality food, dirty tables or service without a smile.
A day out ‘experience’ is not complete without some food and drink. Smart coffee bars are well established in bookshops, garden centres, leisure attractions and department stores. Museums need to keep up – they have to consider providing what the customer wants; catering is now wherever people congregate and there is no better location than a busy museum or one that has a good location and has the right design and feel. Don’t worry, an eclectic mix of furniture and decor works well!
Catering is a great business with healthy margins, lots of feel good factor and a real capacity for creating a distinctive product. Quality food, drink and service can be a huge ‘pull’ factor complementing, if not rivalling, the best of exhibits. There is no doubt a good cafe can dramatically increase museum footfall.
Download successful museum cafes (opens in a new tab)