A profitable business that “doesn’t really feel like work”
Introducing Really Awesome Coffee
Really Awesome Coffee serve gourmet coffee, hot drinks and food to people at workplaces and events nationwide. Since the first mobile café launched in Coventry in 2010, we have gone from strength to strength to become the largest mobile café network in the UK.The Concept – it’s simple; take advantage of the huge demand in the ever expanding UK coffee market but avoid competition on the high street by taking the "coffee shop" directly to customers in our unique mobile café vans.
What's Involved in Running a Mobile Cafe?
The business is built around a daily coffee round that we help you establish, with the mobile café visiting local businesses at agreed times each day to serve a full range of gourmet coffees, frappes & smoothies as well as hot and chilled food options – everything you would expect in a top quality high street café. There is usually a relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere at the van, with your day being made up of other people’s breaks! Over time, it feels more like driving around making coffee for your mates than it feels like "work".A large portion of franchise partners also make significant additional income from optional weekend ‘events’ work.
What Makes Us Unique?
At Really Awesome Coffee we pride ourselves in the level of training and ongoing support we provide our franchisees, and we also like to be at the forefront of the industry in terms of technological developments and advances.There are lots of things that we believe make our business a unique prospect – here are a few:
The Mobile Café – developed and built by us, our coffee vans are uniquely capable, efficient, and environmentally friendly. We are very proud of the vans and provide a full tour on our Virtual Discovery Presentations.
The Really Awesome App – we like to make it as easy as possible for our customers to buy from us. Our bespoke app alerts customers when our franchisees’ vans are on their way and also allows them to pre-order their drinks so that they can avoid the queue.
RAPoS – our bespoke electronic-point-of-sale till system. As well as performing standard functions and linking with the customer app, it also syncs with online coffee route maps and generates a suite of detailed ‘coffee-stop specific’ reports that are vital in tracking performance and ensuring that optimal business development advice is provided.
Training & Support
We like our franchise partners to be able to concentrate on the most important things – providing great service and building lasting relationships with their customers.As franchisors it’s therefore our job to make the day-to-day operation of your business as simple and easy as possible. This starts with providing structured, comprehensive training, and continues with regular in-territory support from your Franchise Development Manager and remote support from our head office team.
Full details on our training and business launch program can be found on our website; however, here’s a quick breakdown for you:
Step 1: After an initial training day we carry out detailed business launch preparations with you.
Step 2: You spend 2 weeks with us at our training centre in Coalville.
Step 3: We spend 2 weeks with you in your territory to launch your business.
Step 4: We review your trading data and your Franchise Development Manager visits you regularly to maintain momentum and keep your business growing.
Investment & Returns
With our longstanding finance partners, the required initial investment is just £9,000. However, some franchise partners invest more up-front to reduce monthly finance repayments over the first few years.With turnovers exceeding £100,000p.a. and an average combined gross profit margin of over 60% (combined gourmet drinks & food sales), there is plenty of profit to be made for those willing to put in the work and commit to the tried-and-tested system.
Who Makes A Great Really Awesome Coffee Franchisee?
A lot of our franchise partners cite the fact that although they work hard, it “doesn’t really feel like work”.The honest answer to this question is it’s simply someone who will enjoy the social aspect of the role and who, with our assistance, is prepared to put in the short term hard work that is needed to grow any business.
If you think that you might enjoy running your own mobile café then I’d love to invite you to attend one of our online Virtual Discovery Presentations. Thank you for taking the time to read our profile and please feel free to request some more information or visit our website to find out more.
Help us celebrate 100 coffee vans!
It has been an exciting decade for Really Awesome Coffee. Starting out with just 1 coffee van in 2010, then operated by our MD - Kevin Haswell, to now cementing our status as the UK’s largest mobile cafe network as we celebrate 100 vans on the road across the UK.
Kevin said “the plan was always to build a network of franchised coffee vans. However, to actually hit 100 vans, and have an amazing team around me, is a great feeling… and in honesty, I think we’re really only just getting started”.
Being a mobile operation, we have been able to adapt our business model to meet the challenges of the last few years, and these adaptations have helped the network grow and thrive.
Kevin started Really Awesome Coffee having experienced growth in the industry during the 08/09 recession, and the flexibility and control that a mobile coffee business provides, sets us up for continued growth and even more success over the next few years.
Marc & Klara launch van 100 in Lincoln
Marc and Klara had the honour of taking Really Awesome Coffee to van 100. They have hit the ground running since their launch earlier this month with record takings in their first week, and also being firm customer favourites on their daily coffee round.
In his early adulthood, Marc was involved in a life changing road traffic accident, which left him paralysed from the chest down and requiring the aid of a wheelchair. Marc says “Being paralysed has only made me strong and more determined to achieve my goals in life.”
We’re expecting good things (and likely multiple vans) for Marc & Klara over the coming months.
Multi-Unit Operations
Whilst the majority of our network run a single coffee van from home, roughly 1 in 7 franchise partners now operates multiple mobile cafes (with a couple operating 6 each!).
We’re always looking for ways to grow and open up new opportunities for our franchise partners. As well as the standard coffee vans, we also support a couple of coffee shops, some dedicated ‘events’ trailers, some ‘ice-cream & waffle vans’ and some ‘mobile coffee stations’.
We are consistently growing, with new franchise partners joining the network every month, and have already increased the frequency of our Virtual Discovery Presentations to 2-3 per month to cope with the demands of franchise enquiries.
