It’s no exaggeration to suggest that you probably live within walking distance of several coffee shops. How do you differentiate yourself from the half dozen other cafes around you? We suggest two ideas: buy headphones to create a ‘listening station’ for coffee lovers to enjoy some tunes (and hopefully buy some music!), and feature vegan coffee recipes to attract picky eaters to your establishment. While vegans are picky, they are fiercely loyal (and recurring customers) that’ll give you a steady flow of regular customers.
First: Create a Headphones Listening Station
If you’re old enough you might remember visiting record stores and spending hours listening to tunes on ‘listening stations’, which were essentially a half-dozen headphones hooked up to the latest hits. This was a great way to people to stay in their store longer, as well as creating positive associations with that space. Now, imagine having that at your coffee shop! A good coffee and a chance to listen to your favorite tunes. That’s a great value added experience for your customers, and you may find that customers keep coming back because they want to hear what new music you have available at your listening station.
While headphones can add up in cost quickly, you will find that the $150-$200 range of headphones offer superior sound quality when compared with most people’s home headphones, but will stand up to heavy usage without needing to be replaced constantly. You can find recommendations for the type of headphones on this list of the best over-ear headphones under $200.
Amazing Vegan Coffee Recipes for Your Café
Veganism isn’t just a way of eating — it’s a lifestyle. Vegans are often fierce supporters of animal rights, although their convictions often come at a cost: most foods and drinks available at traditional cafés. Therefore, establishments that cater to vegan needs earn a special brand of loyalty from vegan patrons. After all, doesn’t it stand to reason that if the choices available to you are precious few and someone comes along and creates menu items just for you, wouldn’t you become a regular? These recipes are easy to make and go a long way to making your café a vegan hotspot.
1. Maple Syrup Iced Coffee*
While raw honey isn’t an option for some vegans, you can easily use a substitute to create the same beverage.
What You’ll Need
300 ml of water
1/3 cup of raw almonds
Ground cinnamon
2 tbsp. of maple syrup
2-3 shots of an espresso of your choice
Soak the raw walnuts in water (not the water you’ll use to make the beverage) overnight.
Once the walnuts are infused with water, blend them along with 300ml of water in a medium-to-high-speed setting.
Add the maple syrup and cinnamon to the mixture.
Strain the concentrate so you’re left with a cinnamon maple syrup almond milk.
Finally, add the espresso shots and pour the entire completed drink over ice.
*This drink is a variation of this recipe.
2. Vegan Bulletproof Coffee
Bulletproof Coffee is already a trendy drink to serve at your café. It’s a type of coffee completely devoid of any pesticides, herbicides that, when mixed with medium chain triglyceride fats, become the superfood of coffee.
Although it sounds healthy and green on its own, Bulletproof Coffee has a small but significant caveat that keeps vegans away: it contains butter in the formula. With just a minor adjustment, you can make this super coffee palatable for your vegan patrons.
What You’ll Need
Coconut oil, coconut butter
How to Make It
When blending the coffee, substitute the butter half of the recipe for an all-natural coconut oil concoction or make it half-coconut oil and half-coconut butter.
3. Vegan Chai Latte (based on this source)
What You’ll Need:
300ml of water
3 black tea bags
1 inches of sliced ginger
50ml of cashew milk
Ground cinnamon
2 green cardamom pods
1 tsp. of cloves
1 Tsp. black peppercorns
3 star anise
How to Make It:
Make sure you have all your ingredients prepped before starting.
Mix the water, tea bags, cardamom pods, cloves, black peppercorns, and star anises in a pot until it boils.
When the mixture starts to boil, lower the heat and allow it to simmer for 15 to 20 minutes.
Remove the tea bags from the mixture and allow it to sit in the low heat for another 15 to 20 minutes.
Remove the pot from the low heat and strain the mixture into a container.
Add equal parts of cashew milk and the mixture over the low heat to allow the flavour to mix.
Add the ground cinnamon in for a bold accent.
Enjoy!
Bonus tip: You can sweeten this delicious beverage with agave, Bee Free Honee, maple syrup, or any other vegan sweetener.
The Vegan Chai Latte can be cooled, making for a refreshing beverage, or served hot off the stove.
Try out any of these amazing coffee recipes and put your café on the map for vegans in your region.