Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Beans & Barley Update
Dear Beans & Barley Shop Customers,
We have been opened for almost a year and a half now and have had some ups and downs throughout our journey and without a doubt enjoyed the whole process of building up a business from scratch, especially if it's a speciality shop selling some unusual products from around the world. We’ve had some difficult times with management & finding the products that are likely to sell etc. and it has proven to be very difficult with such speciality products. As you may already know, a lot of the products that we sell have very short best before dates due to not containing preservatives or other useless ingredients that you would usually get in supermarket food. This has resulted in large amounts of wastage since we’ve opened and coming up to a year and a half we have had to re-consider the whole idea/concept of the business and look closely into our finances.
We are stuck for ideas to find a solution as to what can be done to prevent losses within the business. We have tried increasing sales, as some of you may have realised we’ve added fruit & veg, ice creams, additional range, but it hasn’t helped, we have had to raise our prices to compensate for the wastage, which again hasn’t helped, the only option left for us was to reduce the range to a bare minimum which will result in less customers and in turn less sales which won’t help either. Therefore, we have decided that having a retail premises is not financially viable no matter what we try to do and have had to make a very difficult decision to discontinue the retail side of the business.
We believe that by discontinuing the retail section of the business we will give the cafe more of a chance to progress by focusing solely on the cafe and being more creative with what we do. We will make Beans & Barley a much more mum/baby friendly environment, we will use some of the current retail space to create a play area for the kids, our walls will be used for art exhibitions and we will have comfortable sofas scattered around. We will be opening later than usual (especially on weekends) with nibbles and some great wines & draught beers and we will be running weekly classes such as salsa. During the day we will have workshops that will include some of Paul’s speciality subjects, coffee cupping sessions as well as some kids activities such as drawing classes etc. We apologise in advance if we are causing any body inconvenience with this decision but it's not something we have chosen to do, it's something we have had to do.
We will not be buying in any new stock as we need to clear out what we have in stock, also our scaffold shelving will be up for grabs once they are empty along with some of our equipment.
Again, we apologise for any inconvenience caused but it gives us a chance to be more creative with the large space we have.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Beans & Barley on
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Hi Sparkle, we do understand your concerns in terms of near by businesses however, we don't agree with everything you have mentioned in your reply. Firstly, we were a surprise to HLS and they were a suprise to us, we never knew of such a shop before we had actually paid a deposit for our shop, anyhow, I think the products we sell are very different, as you mentioned, they do a lot of niche & local products where as we keep a range of pretty much everything apart from local produce. As for Blend, we never intended to take any customers from them and we never will make any changes to our business with those intentions. Our intentions are to make the place a more pleasant venue for our current customers, we already have parent visitors and we believe its not the most comfortable of places so we are working towards making it a better place for them. With Jam in a Jar, the only reason we're not doing live music is to prevent any sort of competition so we have opted to use the space to do something different to the other venues such as salsa or workshops or tastings. I think we have been very considerate in terms of trying to have minimum effect on other local businesses and it is quite upsetting to see that people do actually think we are here to kill off every other local business.
Thank you any way for addressing your concerns but rest assured that we do not have any intentions to affect near by businesses in any way. We are only trying to create a better environment for our current customers as well as trying to explore other avenues without copying any body else...
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Permalink Reply by DTW on
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It's a personal opinion but I think a range of quality venues in a small area is likely to increase trade overall. Let's say you don't quite know what you fancy but know you can walk to an area where there is a range of quality businesses. You have a short stroll and take your pick. I think you are much more likely to chance that than visit a place where there is only one or two places. I would suggest it may stop people travelling to say Islington or Crouch end. In fact when I think about the top of Green lanes and the people that live around there I actually think there is room for significantly more venues of this type.
Hopefully you can get a late night license. I quite like the idea of strolling between the Salisbury, B&B and jam in the jar on a Saturday afternoon evening.
So good luck. And let's hope HLS benefits as well as you.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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I think your USP could be that you're a kids' soft play area during the day but in the evening all the padding comes off and you're a full on BDSM dungeon. The scaffolding materials are excellent for strapping people to and beating them up (consensually of course). Pressure from housing developers is squeezing out a lot of the competition for this but it's time it was brought out from the light industrial areas and onto the high street anyway. You can only charge children a few pounds an hour for a soft play area but adults will pay through the roof for nearly the same thing.
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Completely agree. This whole "copying Blend" chat is a bit childish. What café would not try and appeal to the mother / child demographic. I really like Blend, but I also like variation.
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Blend is tremendous for parents of under 1s, but from personal experience the minute your kids are on the move cafes like Snug cater better for parents and their kids. I think there is a niche for a soft play cafe and as the coffee is (imho) the best on the lanes I will definitely be visiting! Good luck to the B&B team, I have always found you guys to be polite and very welcoming of me and my family.
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Great to hear all of this, thanks Burgoyne, much appreciatedm
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I'm happy to hear this news. I am a mother on maternity leave and as much as I enjoy going to Blend, it will be nice to have an alternative baby friendly establishment that does good coffee (and beer). I know friends in a similar position to myself who will feel similarly. There are more parents and babies in the vicinity than can fit into Blend in any case. Good luck!
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Thank you for comments Sian, spot on! We have mothers coming in at the moment anyway and as I mentioned earlier we have a huge space so why not make it comfier! Got to keep the people happy :)
Thanks again for your kind wishes..
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Permalink Reply by Jem on
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I think this is a great move for Beans and Barley! I am a massive loyal fan of Blend but do not see the issue of having two similar type businesses. Having more family friendly places that sell great coffee is only a big bonus for the area and for all the local families (I have a 2yr old). I know lots of other parent friends who will welcome this move but will also still visit Blend. Good luck!
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Well Jem, you know what they say.. Competition leads to innovation. If there were no similar businesses, none of us would improve on what we do.
Thanks for your wishes..
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There is plenty of scope for other cafes+ and as shown by the number of cafes in Crouch End 'a crowd attracts a crowd' with most of them busy. There are many kebab places in Green Lanes but there seems to be no end of customers. I support all the places mentioned and am happy to have more choice though would like it if you can still stock some of the fantastic shower gels. Good luck.
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Hi Maggie, I totally agree, our strip is so much busier with the re opening of Jam in a Jar alone so imagine there were a few other places, it would liven up the strip so much. As for the shower gel, unfortunately we wont be stocking anything that we currently sell especially non-food products. As I mentioned earlier I will speak to the guys at HLS to possibily stock our best sellers as the nearest place to get stuff like that would be Crouch End.
Sorry for the inconvenience :(
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