“It’s Always Been My Dream to Own a Joyless Moneypit”

As Ezra Klein neatly summarizes in his link to this story (an old link, but worth revisiting), “Opening a coffee shop is really hard.”  And yet, be honest: some part of you has imagined doing it.

I’m intrigued by the types of businesses that are so romantically attractive to would-be entrepreneurs (yours truly), midlife crisis corporate types, and ambitious retirees…despite being nearly impossible to launch successfully.  From the Slate story Ezra references about a nice couple who decided to chase their dream and open a coffee shop:

The dream of running a small cafe has nothing to do with the excitement of entrepreneurship or the joys of being one’s own boss—none of us would ever consider opening a Laundromat or a stationery store, and even the most delusional can see that an independent bookshop is a bad idea these days. The small cafe connects to the fantasy of throwing a perpetual dinner party, and it cuts deeper—all the way to Barbie tea sets—than any other capitalist urge. To a couple in the throes of the cafe dream, money is almost an afterthought. Which is good, because they’re going to lose a lot of it.

[...] Guess what, dear dreamers? The psychological gap between working in a cafe because it’s fun and romantic and doing the exact same thing because you have to is enormous. Within weeks, [my wife] and I—previously ensconced in an enviably stress-free marriage—were at each other’s throats. [...] Two highly educated professionals with artistic aspirations have just put themselves—or, as we saw it, each other—on $8-per-hour jobs slinging coffee.

The restaurant business can be worse.  Here’s one industry veteran’s warning to day-dreamers:

I had somebody approach me who had a very good job with a major company and an MBA from a prestigious university [and wanted to open a restaurant]. I looked at him and asked, “Is your career in danger?” He said, “No, but I’ve always loved food. I love to cook. I love to have parties.” I told him to invite 20 friends over, throw a great dinner party, and then take a stack of $100 bills and burn them one by one. It will be fun—and cheaper than opening a restaurant.

It’s easy to confuse the types of establishments we like to frequent with the types of enterprises we’d like to run.  Coffee shops embody a tremendous mythology based on the notion that since it’s so relaxing and fun to be a coffee shop patron it must similarly be painless and joyous to create that space for others.  Unfortunately, customers people can be unreasonable, stingy, fickle, and downright unpleasant when they’re low on caffeine or faced with a slightly-stale scone.

Almost any business can seem more glamorous and, frankly, easy to manage from the outside.  The trick is understanding enough about the good, the bad, and the ugly reality before jumping into a new industry or setting out on your own…while maintaining enough of that naivete and idealism to succeed, even in impossibly difficult endeavors.  No one dreams of owning a joyless moneypit that serves coffee or Italian food.  But the great coffee shops and Italian eateries are run by people who knew the risks and decided to give it a shot anyway.

Image of a presumably very happy and well-run coffee shop used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of Flickr user pellesten.