Somewhere below I mentioned a "favorite" coffee place in a couple of posts. I was doing that because I liked it. It was new. The owners seem nice (they still do). I want to see it succeed. So I mentioned it in here to help give it some free publicity.
Sadly, it has changed. Still the same name. (Watertown) Still the same nice owners. Still the same location. But no longer the same business.
They have gotten their liquor license and have made the decision to be a bar all day long and push the alcohol. They have decided (and told me this today) that being a bar means they need to play LOUD music all day long; too loud to have any kind of decent conversation so I strongly do not recommend it for meetings. They do still have great coffee and free wifi. You just have to be able to think to a heavy loud beat.
There is a much higher margin on booze so for every drink they sell they technically make more on the booze than the coffee. The problem is, IMHO, that there are more people who want to have a good "Cup of Joe" during the early part of the day than a good "Shot of Jack".
They have missed a great opportunity! They could market themselves as a great coffee place; great place for meetings, and coffee with friends during the day and as a bar starting sometime in the late afternoon. 3:00 PM would possibly be a good time.
By marketing themselves as this dual personality they would gain a few of important things:
First, it is a fun niche and a treasure trove of marketing possibilities. It is different. It is unique.
Second, they would be addressing two audiences and could use them to feed each other. For instance during bar time they could have a special thing like: when you buy a certain drink you get a 10% off card on baked goods bought with an expresso drink good from X hour to X hour during the day. The X would be the slowest time of the day so would do double duty to encourage people to come in during that time. The could make it fun and change what drinks have the bennies on them from week to week or more often. The same could be done with the day crowd. If you buy a bakery good and coffee you get a card that gives you a bennie at the bar during the bars slowest hours.
Thirdly, back to the two audience opportunity; it is also two age groups. This bar is located very near 3 large hospitals and medical centers. There are thousands of employees between all of the hospitals and related clinics, offices, and other support services. There is nothing like what Watertown was. They had a good opportunity to do some niche marketing and missed it.
It feels instead that they have decided to take a broad shot gun approach aimed at the owners own age group: Twenty-Somethings and pretty much only them. I have to admit that I know very little about twenty-somethings' alcohol consumption at 9:00AM. Maybe they have a business idea that will fly.
I truly wish them the best with their business endeavor, but unless you are a Twenty-Something looking for a stiff drink and loud music at all hours of the day, I can no longer recommend the place.
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