Suggest you contact a number of local coffee roasters and develop a relationship with someone so that you can successfully build your cafe business first..........before trying to do everything from scratch. Let them roast the coffee so you can focus on being successful and serving it and your clients. If you have not started a cafe from scratch before, don't under-estimate just how darn hard it is to get the food, coffee and service working properly. Owners can struggle for 2 years before they see returns. As soon as it's humming, something happens like a new place opens up nearby or a key staff member departs, etc. and you are back struggling again with less than ideal efficiencies. I just don't get this whole "lets plop down a piece of shiny metal" to bring in the patrons concept. Take a trip up to Melbourne and cruise the seriously successful cafes - none of them will have a roaster running in the shop whilst customers are around - that's just a fantasy that is neither sensible or financially viable. Shop roasting is a gimmick that is basically yesterday's news. The average coffee drinker wants a well-prepared coffee and will regard this as a priority way over and above any sort of "theater" you may believe emanates from roasting equipment props. Most of the cafes that have a roaster in-house are owned by someone that worked previously as a roaster for a commercial coffee company and have many years of experience behind them on how to roast and extract coffee. They have already eliminated the risks you can't. Roasting is an acquired skill - just like tennis or golf, it takes an incredible investment in time. Training is just teaching you how to hold the racquet or club - does not mean you can use it. Roasting emits smoke, heat, dust and noise. It is just as unsuitable for an enjoyable customer experience as having a car serviced in your cafe. Roasting requires complete focus and attention. We have seen cafes with roasters catch on fire at least 3 times in the last 2 years. Roasting requires quite a lot of space for equipment and stock - you can generate 15x the returns from serving cups of coffee and selling food. Bums on seats = $$ in your till. Shop roasters have variable batch quality ranging from shocking to acceptable. They do not achieve the same level of consistency in terms of quality as a commercial industrial roaster. The smaller the batch size, the higher statistical variance and the greater risk of defect. I personally know 4 cafe owners who have roasters in their cafes. 3 of the roasters are never used (because of smoke issues and complaints from nearby traders) and the 4th roaster is only used once a fortnight at night time (again, because of smoke) - this owner also wishes they had a separate facility to roast the coffee as it's an absolute pain roasting in their shop - they only roast a handful of single origins to sell from their shop and ironically, their house blend is roasted by someone else (not in their shop). Focus on a few things and do them well.
