Preparing Your Cafe for Sale

preparing your cafe for sale

Cafes have become increasingly popular in Australia because they allow customers to take full advantage of the great weather throughout the continent. This is especially true in the coastal regions where cafes, especially cafes with local themes, attract a lot of tourists.

After several years of owning your own cafe, you are convinced that now is the time to sell it and move on to your next adventure. You have put a lot of hours and hard work into your cafe and now you want to get the biggest possible financial return out of it. Before you put it up on the market, there are some things you need to do to maximize your selling price.

Make Sure You Have A Theme

If you want to sell your cafe as-is, then that is fine. But if you want to get more for your selling price, then you need to create or enhance the theme you have.

An effective cafe theme does not need to be anything extravagant. It can be something as simple as a colour scheme that is used throughout the cafe. But when people step into a place like yours, they want the feeling of being in a welcoming and cozy place. Without a unified theme, creating that feeling is almost impossible.

The elements that need to be included in your theme are:

  • The names of the food and drinks you serve;
  • The look of the furniture and the decor;
  • The uniforms your staff wears.

Cafes, more so than restaurants, need to have a unifying look if they are going to be successful. A theme creates that look and gives customers the kind of cozy feeling they are looking for.

Clean Up The Interior

A cafe that looks in need of repair is not going to attract customers or bring the highest asking price. Put a coat of paint on the walls, repair the floors, and make sure that everything is clean and inviting.

Take the time to work on the layout of your entrance as well. This is a cafe, so avoid putting impulse purchase racks at the entrance. If you want to use impulse purchase racks, then put them near the cash register where they belong.

Fix Up The Curb Appeal

Your customers and any potential buyers of your cafe will develop 90 percent of their opinion about your business based on how it looks from the street. If your sign looks weather beaten, the freshen it up. If you need a coat of paint on the railings that surround your outdoor seating area, then get to work.

In some areas, selling a cafe is a lot like selling a house because you want customers to feel at home in a cafe. Once again, this idea of cozy is something that restaurants do not need to be concerned with, but cafes do.

Increase Your Foot Traffic

When you have potential buyers come into your cafe, the first thing they will look for is how much business you bring in. If your foot traffic is slow, then that will definitely affect your selling price.

Your desire to increase foot traffic should be ongoing, but you can step up your efforts when you are trying to sell your cafe. Put out fliers with coupons on them to increase foot traffic and put up posters in your windows announcing your latest promotions.

Do whatever you can to make sure that your cafe is filled when the buyer is there, and when the buyer is not there. Even though your buyer may not be in the building, that does not mean that he won’t be driving by your location frequently to see what kind of foot traffic you are getting.

Repeat Business

Selling a cafe is much different than selling a restaurant or retail business. Customers need to feel comfortable in your cafe if they are going to come back, and repeat business has a huge effect on how much of a selling price you can get for the cafe for sale.

Prepare your business for sale before you put it on the market and you will increase your selling price.