While this article was noncommittal in offering up the reasons for HB's success, the pleasant sales experience was reiterated throughout the article. THIS IS HUGE IN RETAIL.
As of this coming Saturday, I'll be a year into operating a coffee shop I opened with two friends. Like HB, my shop has exceeded my expectations in the first year. FWIW, here are my observations on success:
If you have the best sales experience in town coupled with a great, consistent product, people will talk about you. I monitor every mention of keywords related to our shop on twitter, Facebook, yelp, instagram, tumblr, etc and after a year in operation, it's pretty clear that people value the attitude [or lack thereof] of my employees, our approachability, the quality and consistency of our product, and the beauty of our shop. In combination, these things help create and maintain a lot of positive buzz about the shop. Buzz begets buzz too. We've never once paid for advertising and instead let word of mouth and good product do the talking. First there were just tweets, Facebook mentions, and word of mouth. Then bloggers started writing about us. Then we had local press do a few stories on us. With time, all this turned into positive reputation and people outside of the city began to mention us. Recently we've received national press. We also just climbed atop the #1 ranking in yelp for coffee in Charleston, SC. Over the past year, I've made a concerted effort to keep people talking and it seems to have worked.
TLDR: If people see integrity in the ownership, quality in the product, and a pleasant sales environment, they will tell someone and they will be loyal to the brand. If you've done your job so well that you can inspire your customers to talk about you, you will grow, even if you aren't in a prime location.
A timely comment, as I've got a friend about to dive into this very enterprise (Coffeshop/craft beer combo) here in Atlanta.
Do you mind sharing what you felt were the key traffic drivers in the pre social media mention days? IOW, what drove people in your door the first 90 days of operation?
Actually, we tried to create some buzz on social media even before opening, but I'm unsure how much this actually drove traffic in those first days. I think your friend will figure out pretty quickly that at first, opening a brick and mortar [without any previous brand history] is very much about the location. The early adopters will be folks from the neighborhood. In some respects, predicting early traffic for a coffee shop is what I would imagine it to be like if you were looking at good locations for a gas station. Since there's nothing too novel about the _concept_ of a coffee shop, before people try you out, they're going to judge you by what part of town you're in, how easy it is to park, and other logistical factors. Once you get people in the door, that's where you need to start differentiating yourself. If you can impress your first customers, get them talking, and stay consistent, the draw of the shop will expand outside of the neighborhood. Once you have a reputation, people will overcome logistical hurdles to try you out. From there, it's all about continuing to create positive experiences for your customers and they will keep talking about you.
FWIW, my wife and I visited Charleston, SC in December from Austin, found your coffee shop on Yelp, and really enjoyed the experience. We came back twice on a four day trip.
We were just in San Diego, and part of our trip was looking for a coffee place "as good as Black Tap"
As of this coming Saturday, I'll be a year into operating a coffee shop I opened with two friends. Like HB, my shop has exceeded my expectations in the first year. FWIW, here are my observations on success: If you have the best sales experience in town coupled with a great, consistent product, people will talk about you. I monitor every mention of keywords related to our shop on twitter, Facebook, yelp, instagram, tumblr, etc and after a year in operation, it's pretty clear that people value the attitude [or lack thereof] of my employees, our approachability, the quality and consistency of our product, and the beauty of our shop. In combination, these things help create and maintain a lot of positive buzz about the shop. Buzz begets buzz too. We've never once paid for advertising and instead let word of mouth and good product do the talking. First there were just tweets, Facebook mentions, and word of mouth. Then bloggers started writing about us. Then we had local press do a few stories on us. With time, all this turned into positive reputation and people outside of the city began to mention us. Recently we've received national press. We also just climbed atop the #1 ranking in yelp for coffee in Charleston, SC. Over the past year, I've made a concerted effort to keep people talking and it seems to have worked.
TLDR: If people see integrity in the ownership, quality in the product, and a pleasant sales environment, they will tell someone and they will be loyal to the brand. If you've done your job so well that you can inspire your customers to talk about you, you will grow, even if you aren't in a prime location.