from personal experience I would say take your estimate of set up costs and double it, and ensure that you have comprehensive staff training, operational procedures, and a day-to-day running plan in operation, prior to opening, including at least one 'dry' opening to see how well your staff perform under pressure with my current cafe we spent six months building it then got slammed upon opening and weren't able to adequately service our clientele - and as a result we lost a lot of potential regulars - now 18 months later we're finally starting to build demand, and are seeing a lot of new and more regular faces returning - why? because the focus has been on quality control and staff training, and I'm now confident in the team we have going forward anyway, I use that as an example of how long it can take to build a faithful client base, and remind you that you need to have enough capital to run at a loss for 12 to 18 months after opening, if necessary, before you start to break even, let alone show a profit the major pitfall for most cafe owners as I see it is lack of sufficient experience combined with being under capitalised, paying someone to handle some of the heavy work initially for you such as staff training, and quality control, not to mention writing training manuals, service flows charts, and day to day operating procedures etc can take a lot of stress away frfom a potentially stressful situation, and can be a useful learning tool, as well as backing up your own convictions it may seem like an unnecessary and perhaps excessive expense at the time but its a small price to pay for peace of mind good luck with it all P
