Specialty Coffee Retailer is a publication for owners, managers and employees of retail outlets that sell specialty coffee. Its scope includes best sales practices, supplies, business trends and anything else to assist the small coffee retailer.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/52159
The sandwich Baked goods and sandwiches are the most common menu items, but they can be a challenge to furnish while maintaining your shop's identity. BY PAN DEMETRAKAKES I f there's two must-have food items on the menu of most coff eehouses, it's baked goods and sandwiches. Pies, cakes, brownies and other oven-fresh goodies practically beg to be accompanied by a hot, rich cup of coff ee. Th e smell from the oven can be a powerful inducement. "Baking during the day...really had its pluses with the fresh aromas enticing the customers to enjoy your goods," says Joseph Robertson, co-owner of JoLinda's Coff ee and Wine Shop, Portland, Ore. As for sandwiches, they're almost mandatory if you're serving lunch—and can also be a great alternative for breakfast. But baked goods and sandwiches both have their challenges, especially in coff eehouses, most of which have limited space and cooking equipment. Off ering either or both requires some fundamental decisions about resources, both inanimate and human. If you want to off er baked goods but don't want to make them from scratch (or a mix), you basically have three options for how they come to the door: fresh, parbaked or frozen. Fresh goods, either in bulk or portion-packed, are the simplest. Th e tradeoff is a short shelf life in most cases, although the right formulation and/or packaging can extend that. Aroma Ridge Baking, for instance, uses a glaze and vacuum packaging to attain a six-month shelf life for its Wicked Jack's Rum Cake. Frozen baked goods are the next step up in ease of use from fresh stuff . Th ey can be slacked out, in a refrigerator or at room temperature, or warmed in an oven. Inventory management is one of the biggest advantages of using frozen baked goods, says Peter Wodek, national sales manager for Athena's Silverland Desserts, Forest Park, Ill. As long as you have room in your freezer, you can always keep your customers' favorite goodies in stock. "With that long freezer shelf life, you're able to always have something in your freezer to slack out, put in your pastry case, and even though it's frozen, it still has that homemade, fresh look to it," Wodek says. "Th ey're just available any time that you need them, whether you're trying to fi ll an empty spot in your case or, 18 | January 2012 • www.specialty-coffee.com Sandwiches are a natural fit for the noontime crowd, but it can be hard to make them on demand. as most people do, bring them out as the aſt ernoon off ering." Th e key is fi nding freezer-compatible products. Some goods, like muffi ns, don't freeze as well as brownies, which have a higher moisture content, Wodek says. For goods that don't freeze well, parbaked is an option. Parbaked goods combine the advantage of extended shelf life with fresh-from-the-oven aroma and taste. Th e biggest challenge is that the supplier/initial baker has to be relatively close by. Some retailers rent or even buy a central commissary to supply their stores with parbaked goods; others maintain one store in a chain with a full-size kitchen to supply sister stores. Mixes, or premixed dough or batter, are another option that can bring you even closer to baking from scratch. Victorian House Scones, for example, off ers a dry mix that can be made into batter the night before, frozen as individual portions and baked into fresh scones in the morning. HOW FAR AHEAD? Sandwiches are another mainstay that requires a basic decision: Do you make them the night before, in the morning, or on the spot? Coff eehouse owner and consultant Bruce Milletto is adamant that making sandwiches to order almost never works. He recalls the experience of a coff ee shop owned by someone else, in a building where he worked, that tried to do it that way. "Th ey were completely overstaff ed," Milletto says. "Not only