Cafe con Leche to close New Center location, ends 10-year run in Detroit

This is sad. The prices were pretty good.

-The owner said he wasn't making a profit

-One of the reasons he wasn't making a profit is the weather. “Last year, I was only reaching 10 percent of potential customers in the [[New Center) area,” he said. “The thing is, they have coffee in each building, and in the winter time, they don’t leave the building.”

-The owner said Detroit is getting saturated with coffee shops. There are too many coffee shops per the amount of people in the area.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/bus...oit/100869120/

Such a bummer. I got to know Jordi a little bit when he had his pop up coffee shop in Lafayette Park. The place was always busy but he still took the time to talk to you and form a relationship. He is the type of small business owner that the city needs. I wish he would come back to LP, I know the neighborhood has been clamoring for a coffee shop and cafe since he his pop up left.

@southern did the Paris Café that was Lafayette in Park close?

Best of luck on his future endeavors.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Former_Detroiter

@southern did the Paris Café that was Lafayette in Park close?

---

I believe that closed before I moved to the neighborhood 5 years ago.

That is the cycle of niche fad business,get in the beginning ride it to the middle,and sell out,move on.

Saturation always kicks in as more want to jump in on the bandwagon.

Micro breweries and dispensaries will be next.

I do not think it has anything to do with who opens what it is just st the nature of that game,not shure why there was a need to slant it any other way.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Former_Detroiter

@southern did the Paris Café that was Lafayette in Park close?

---

Cafe Com Leche had a pop up shop in the spot where the laundromat currently in. The space was too big and the owner was hoping to find a spot in the strip mall but Metro PC had taken the wanted spot on the corner. Trinosophes had taken a prime spot on Gratiot between Russell and Jay so Con Leche looked elsewhere. Had he were able to find a spot in Lafayette Park Con Leche would still be in business today

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Richard

That is the cycle of niche fad business,get in the beginning ride it to the middle,and sell out,move on.

Saturation always kicks in as more want to jump in on the bandwagon.

Micro breweries and dispensaries will be next.

I do not think it has anything to do with who opens what it is just st the nature of that game,not shure why there was a need to slant it any other way.

---

Bottom line, Detroit is NOT repeat NOT a big restaurant town. You need to create a "restaurant" row, like they do in chicago/NYC/SF....a cluster of high-end, reputable restaurants....and esp. restaurants tourists can get to easily.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chicago48

Bottom line, Detroit is NOT repeat NOT a big restaurant town. You need to create a "restaurant" row, like they do in chicago/NYC/SF....a cluster of high-end, reputable restaurants....and esp. restaurants tourists can get to easily.

---

There is a gentleman named Bob Snow and that is what he would do,take a large run down section of town and create a destination with restaurants and different clubs that would cater to locals and tourists alike.

The key is to be able to provide the security in order to provide a comfortable experience. Church street station in Orlando,some things in Las Vegas and other parts of the country.It works well because it is easier for law enforcement to provide safety in a controlled situation.Creating a destination verses a one off situation.

When you read stories about people wanting to open clubs in Fisher body and Packard etc. you know that it will never go because all it will take is for one tourist or resident to wander one block away in a daze and become tomorrows news.Resources are spread to thin to provide a safe atmosphere.

The problem with the city creating a district made up of a lot of independent owned restaurants and clubs is eventually they become popular and then the rents increase so much it becomes a revolving door situation.

It really needs to be a group investment or a large co-op of sorts in order to keep the overhead in check.

I think the stadium being currently built has a lot of those thoughts in mind when it comes to creating a district of sorts and it looks like it may evolve into that.Although the city has paid a dear price for it long term.

I am involved in the restaurant business quietly and sell equipment,it is a tough game and a lot of hours for an owner operator and it is rare that one sees a restaurant passed down for generation to generation,10 years was a good run for Coffee con leche and as Detroit improves and rents increase sadly there will be more stories like that.

It is an industry with a good 70% failure rate,I sell or set up a restaurant for somebody and 6 month's later they are calling me back to sell everything back to me.

It does have good margins but in one I have a partner,he also does some wholesale stuff so his day starts at 5 am and ends at 10 pm weekdays and 12 pm Friday and Saturday night. 7 days a week. I did that with nightclubs in my 30s but hit 50 and no way.

Where I am at there are probably 10 restaurants opening up a week,then at least 3 more micro brewery ones a month,but they are all niches trying to put a spin on something different,the average lunch is $13 per person which is costly for a daily visit to the average person.

But then again a stop at Burger King or similar will set one back $10 anyways.

Comparatively to me the only way to really do a restaurant in Detroit is to actually buy a property as they are cheap enough but the tax situation is a killer so you may pay less up front the long term aspect kinda dissolves the work to pay the property off so in the future it can be released as an investment.

I am not sure if it is a case of Detroit is not a restaurant city or if the cost of doing business in Detroit is the key factor making it a non restaurant city.

The restaurants where I am involved in are located in sections that are similar to the demographics of Detroit but they actually do quite well,Caribbean style where lunch is Baked chicken or Jerk chicken with yellow rice and beans and a side for $6.00 volume sales,our biggest ticket is a Bahamian style Conch salad for $25 and probably sell 10 a day on a average.

But in comparison our leases are net $2500 a month with an average of $6000 per month overhead,labor,utilities etc.

I just bought out a lease of 15,000 sqft restaurant on a river with boat dock access and 4 cop liquor for $3000 a month,same metrics as Detroit, Kinda like Corktown or Mid town, but way less overhead.

It is hard to imagine how many cups of coffee in a stand alone building one would have to sell just to pay the rent,places like Starbucks got away with it because they became a cool place to pay an insane price for a cup of coffee.Then Keurig came on the scene and deeply cut into their bottom line,which is a whole another story.

High end restaurants are nice but they are not a daily event for the averaged person impact is based on income levels and volume,at this point in time in Detroit it would seem as though there are few options in locating a high end restaurant,we have some Italian ones that average $100 per person for lunch and is packed to capacity every day but maybe 4 at best and their clientele is mostly judges and lawyers and the occasional male that has pissed off his spouse and is trying to gain brownie points with a nice meal but outside of the 4 it would be unsustainable in a population of a couple of million draw.

I think good food at a fair price to the average person,based on what it would cost for a single person to cook at home verses stopping in,is what works best.

Then a district that is a place to go to on the weekends with a date or significant other or just a group of friends out for a nice time,but they still need to be able to do that within a reasonable budget.That is a hard target to reach in a popular area with $12,000 a month just in lease and a overhead reaching $20,000 a month.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chicago48

Bottom line, Detroit is NOT repeat NOT a big restaurant town. You need to create a "restaurant" row, like they do in chicago/NYC/SF....a cluster of high-end, reputable restaurants....and esp. restaurants tourists can get to easily.

---

Maybe we could have a theme, like all Greek restaurants.

They were, perhaps, a little early. The neighborhood is still pretty sleepy and coffee shops generally need a lot of traffic.

Hundreds of new apartments are planned within 2-3 blocks of Cafe con Leche's location within the next two years. It's too bad that the current revenue outlook isn't strong enough for the place to hold out until all the new residents arrive.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chicago48

You need to create a "restaurant" row, like they do in chicago/NYC/SF....a cluster of high-end, reputable restaurants....and esp. restaurants tourists can get to easily.

---

Are you talking about restaurant row on 46th? None of those are particularly good, they are just conveniently located for pre- or post-broadway dining. Except for a bar or two, most locals won't go anywhere near those places.

Wasn't this the coffee place "inside" the Fisher Building where Mitch Albom would interview folks for his TV show at the end of "Flashpoint?" Personally, a coffee place there is tough if you only have a few hundred workers in the building as opposed to thousands of workers in the building. And, it would be hard to get people who work outside the building to patronize the business, if they have a coffee shop in their building - New Center One, Albert Kahn, and Cadillac Place. Also, according to one of the Detroit News comments, if the place opened at 8 am, then he missed out on a lot of the incoming office workers who had to be at their desks at 8 am. Too bad things didn't work out at the southwest Detroit location. For the kind of coffee he's selling, that seemed like the ideal "niche" location.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Richard

That is the cycle of niche fad business,get in the beginning ride it to the middle,and sell out,move on.

Saturation always kicks in as more want to jump in on the bandwagon.

---

A coffee shop is not a niche, fad business.

Like Swingline said, there are new apartment residences being built or proposed in the New Center - The Third & Grand Apartments, Baltimore Station Apartments, and Woodward Grand Apartments are being built right now, and a German developer recently bought 4 buildings on 2nd street to convert to residential. In addition, the QLine will have a stop 2 blocks from the coffee shop. If he could have held out a little longer...

I would have thought that there would be enough workers in that area to support his business.