Starting a Coffee Shop or Roastery

Choose the business before choosing the machine

Start by deciding what you will sell, to whom and through which channels. A neighbourhood café, takeaway kiosk, wholesale roastery and online coffee brand are different businesses, even when they use the same beans.

For a café, observe the proposed area at different times and speak to potential customers. For a roastery, test samples with prospective buyers and distinguish polite enthusiasm from a repeat order.

Your business plan should explain the offer, competition, sales channels, operating requirements, risks and responsibilities. Use the coffee industry overview for context, but base your own forecast on evidence from the customers you intend to serve.

Keep the opening offer manageable. Consider buying roasted coffee or using a contract roaster, which produces coffee for your business, before deciding whether owning roasting equipment serves a proven need.

Build the financial plan from itemised quotations

Separate opening expenditure from recurring commitments and working capital, the funds needed to keep operating while payments come in and bills fall due.

Request itemised written quotations covering:

• Premises, legal advice, surveys, fit-out and utility alterations.
• Equipment, installation, commissioning, water treatment and training.
• Extraction, emissions controls and any required examinations.
• Opening stock, packaging, cleaning materials and small equipment.
• Staffing, insurance, servicing, waste collection, accounting and marketing.

Ask suppliers to identify exclusions, ongoing obligations and VAT treatment. Compare complete installed proposals, not just the machine supplied.

Build your own product calculations. For drinks, include coffee, milk, other ingredients, packaging and wastage; then account for labour and overheads across a realistic sales volume. For roasted coffee, measure saleable output from trial batches rather than treating the green coffee loaded as the finished quantity available to sell.

Prepare a monthly cash-flow forecast covering at least 12 months. Include the owner’s income needs, tax payments, stock purchases and the timing of wholesale receipts, then test slower sales, delayed opening and equipment downtime.

Discuss suitable finance with an accountant and potential funders. Compare repayment obligations, security, personal guarantees and ownership implications, not simply whether an application is accepted.

Check premises and permissions before committing

Send the local planning authority a written description of the proposed operation: customer seating, takeaway service, food preparation, roasting, deliveries, opening hours and extraction. Ask a solicitor to check that the occupation agreement permits those activities and the necessary alterations.

Planning classifications are not UK-wide

In England, cafés selling food and drink mainly for consumption on the premises generally fall within Class E(b). Some low-impact industrial activities can fall within Class E(g)(iii), while other industrial processes fall within Class B2.

A commercial roastery is not automatically B2 or sui generis. Its classification depends on the operation and its effects; a combined café and roastery may also require consideration of primary, ancillary or mixed use. Ask the planning authority to assess your actual proposal rather than relying on a property advertisement.

Do not apply England’s Class E terminology across the UK. Confirm the relevant classification locally in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, and check whether extraction, external alterations or existing planning conditions need separate attention.

Registration is not a general operating licence

Check activity-specific requirements with the council’s licensing team. In England and Wales, selling alcohol and supplying hot food or drink between 11pm and 5am can require a premises licence, subject to exemptions. Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate licensing arrangements.

Also ask about outdoor seating, pavement use and any proposed entertainment.

Before approving the layout, check handwashing, food preparation, drainage, ventilation, storage, accessibility and fire safety arrangements. For a roastery, establish whether there is a feasible exhaust route and suitable space for deliveries and production.

Register and establish food safety procedures

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, register with the appropriate local authority at least 28 days before trading. Registration is free. Food Standards Scotland also requires registration at least 28 days before trading.

A roastery handling and supplying coffee is a food business, not merely an equipment workshop. Register each relevant premises and describe the activities accurately, including wholesale supply or online sales.

Food safety procedures must be based on HACCP, meaning hazard analysis and critical control points: identifying what could make food unsafe and establishing controls. Suitable catering resources include Safer Food, Better Business, Scotland’s CookSafe and Northern Ireland’s Safe Catering pack. A roasting operation needs procedures suited to manufacturing, not an unchanged café checklist.

For cafés, establish cleaning, chilling, pest-control and allergen procedures before opening. Keep ingredient information current and train staff to handle allergy enquiries without guessing. Foods qualifying as prepacked for direct sale, such as sandwiches packed on site before customers select them, need the food name and a full ingredients list with regulated allergens emphasised.

For roasting, include incoming stock checks, storage, production records, contamination controls and recall arrangements. Discuss applicable acrylamide mitigation and monitoring requirements with the food safety officer.

Specify equipment around the workflow

Write an equipment brief before approaching suppliers. Describe the menu or product range, expected busy periods, staffing, available utilities and cleaning arrangements.

For a café, assess the espresso machine, grinders, refrigeration, washing equipment, water treatment, scales and storage as one working system. Ask suppliers to demonstrate the intended workload, including steaming milk and cleaning between tasks, rather than quoting an isolated machine output.

For a roastery, specify production, cooling, exhaust, packing, weighing, storage and quality-control needs together. Ask how the proposed installation handles cleaning access, maintenance and future expansion. Treat manufacturer output figures as claimed capacity until demonstrated under your intended conditions.

Arrange pressure-system compliance separately from servicing

Commercial espresso machines with steam boilers can fall under the Pressure Systems Safety Regulations 2000 in Great Britain. Steam is a relevant fluid at any pressure.

Ask the supplier and a competent person to establish the applicable duties. Where required, a written scheme of examination and examination must be in place before use. Routine servicing does not replace statutory examination; consult HSENI for Northern Ireland requirements.

Resolve roasting emissions before installation

Take the proposed roaster specification and site layout to environmental health before ordering. Include fuel, operating schedule, throughput, exhaust arrangements and nearby homes or other sensitive uses.

Ask for a written assessment of:

• Whether the installation requires an environmental permit or another authorisation.
• Applicable smoke controls and any furnace or chimney requirements.
• How odour, noise and emissions will be controlled.

In England and Wales, environmental permitting depends on the regulated activity and installation, not simply the description “coffee roastery”. Scotland and Northern Ireland use different regulatory arrangements, so confirm the responsible regulator locally.

In Great Britain, ask about applicable Clean Air Act requirements. Odour is a separate consideration: in England, councils must investigate potential statutory nuisance from business premises and can require it to stop or be restricted.

Ask the designer whether an afterburner, scrubber or another control system is appropriate, and what evidence supports the proposal. Do not assume a named technology is universally required or guarantees compliance.

Worker exposure needs separate attention. HSE warns that coffee roasting and grinding can produce diacetyl vapour, and that exposure can exceed workplace limits. Arrange a suitable hazardous-substance assessment and controls, including extraction and exposure checks where indicated.

Choose suppliers and train the team

Assess coffee suppliers on consistency, traceability, availability and support, not the appeal of one sample. Ask about ordering arrangements, delivery lead times, substitutions, product specifications and complaint handling.

For green coffee, agree sample approval and delivery arrangements before purchasing production stock. Our guide to green coffee trading and importers explains the supply-chain roles; direct trade and auctions covers alternative purchasing relationships.

Keep records of food suppliers and business customers supplied so products can be traced if something goes wrong.

Recruit around the work that needs doing: opening, preparation, service, production, cleaning and administration. Check employment status, right to work, payroll, minimum-wage compliance, pension duties and applicable employers’ liability insurance before staff start.

Train people in both quality and safety. Food handlers need appropriate instruction and supervision; a certificate alone does not demonstrate that the workplace’s procedures are being followed.

Use a staged opening checklist

1. Validate demand: identify customers, test the offer and record the assumptions behind forecast sales.
2. Clear the site: resolve planning, occupation terms, utilities, extraction and relevant permissions.
3. Confirm finance: complete quotations, cash-flow forecasting and funding arrangements.
4. Register and document: meet the registration deadline and prepare food safety and traceability procedures.
5. Commission and train: complete installation checks, required examinations and staff instruction.
6. Rehearse the operation: run a service or production trial, including cleaning, an allergy enquiry and a traceability exercise.

For starting a coffee shop or roastery, use this sequence as a set of decision gates. Do not move to equipment installation while the site’s suitability remains uncertain.