Coffee Shop Economics: Cost per Cup, Throughput, Staffing & Break-even

What you'll build

What you will be able to do

Each lab ends with a concrete result that you build yourself and the checker confirms, cell by cell.

• Turn a bag price into a coffee cost per dose, cost eight drinks from doses, millilitres of milk and the cup, and find the most expensive drink to make.
• Strip sales tax out of menu prices, work out the contribution and margin of every drink, price to a target cost % in 25-cent steps and count the drinks that miss the target.
• Turn one day of till data into a sales mix, the average ticket and the pastry attach rate, and put a dollar value on selling one more croissant with the coffee.
• Turn seconds per drink into bar capacity, compare it with drinks ordered hour by hour, find the peak hour and size the bar team for it, then chart demand against capacity.
• Turn shift start and end times into paid hours, cost the rota with payroll on-costs, measure labour cost % and sales per labour hour, and find how many hours are over budget.
• Measure milk waste against what the till says was poured, cost unsold pastries, and use the newsvendor rule to set tomorrow's croissant order.
• Add up a café's monthly fixed costs, build a contribution per drink that includes the pastry attached to it, and turn it into break-even drinks per day, a margin of safety and the cost of a rent rise in cups.
• Model four ways to run next month side by side, base, loyalty card, coffee subscription and a seasonal menu, compare the monthly profit, pick the best with INDEX/MATCH and chart it.