Hi Erynn I would suggest you reach out to the Coworking Canada google group as well, and definitely to the Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto about their profit sharing coffee shop model over at CSI Annex. They have the cafe on the main floor lounge (open to the public) and to prevent the 'free coffee' conflict, there is absolutely no coffee provided on the 2nd floor (directly upstairs from the cafe) but the free coffee starts flowing again on the 3rd floor of the building. It's an interesting agreement to say the least.
At Foundery, because we own the building, we rented a neighbouring unit to Starbucks when we first opened this coworking location. There is no entrance to the cafe through the coworking space, you must go out the front door and in the next door to reach the cafe. This prevents the noise issues and also prevents the general public from entering the space uninvited. We are now replacing the Starbucks with an independent cafe that is more in line with our community, but the function is the same. The cafe is always a great meeting point and social spot for all of our members and there is great crossover with members from other floors in the building. An external cafe is also a great place to find new members - they are usually sitting uncomfortably with their laptop trying to get some work done.... All we have to do is invite them next door and show them a better option! We have always provided free coffee to our members, but had a simple agreement that we would not sell coffee in competition with Starbucks. We are not in the coffee business anyway, so it's not problematic at all ;) Hope that helps, Ashley The Foundery Buildings 376 Bathurst Street Toronto, ON M5T 2S6 On Apr 15, 2014, at 12:17 PM, Erynn Lyster wrote: > Hi Everyone > > We are a coworking space located in Canada and are thinking about the idea of > partnering with a local coffee house and having them set up a coffee shop in > our space. > > We were just wondering if anyone had any experience with that - how did you > agree to rental terms with the shop (ie: did they pay you rent or did you > split profits?) and also how did you get around the issue of free vs paid-for > coffee? We currently provide great free coffee and we believe that we should > continue to provide free coffee, but obviously this is a bit of a conflict of > interest. We don't have any fancy coffees like espressos or cappuccinos, > though, which the coffee partner could provide along with snacks etc. > > Any insight would be appreciated! > > ~Erynn > > -- > -- > Erynn Lyster > The Commons Calgary > a cowork apothecary > > www.thecommonscalgary.com > (403) 399-1716 (cell) or (403) 452-7938 (office) > > -- > Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com > --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Coworking" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
