The Bloomsburg Café Analysis

2.1 Overview

Bloomsbury Coffeehouse café is located in London, UK. It is rated as 4.5 out of 5 stars by the trip advisors and visitors (Chen,2017). It provides people with 26 types of coffees and teas out of 1,213 in London. Talking about the location, it is located at 20 Tailstock Place, London WC1H 9RE, England, near UCL Institute of Education and in front of Leo Wing Chun Chinese Kung Fu Russel Square (Renard,1999). The café is located Straight from her brand street and then right towards Tavistock Place, underneath the St Athan’s Hotel.

The coffee house remains open from 8 am to 6 pm during the weekdays. However, timings are different on weekends as it opens at 1:30 pm at weekends and on bank holidays. Brunch timings of café are 11 am during the week and 1:30 pm on weekends and bank holidays (Ates et al.,2014). The café offers daily cinnamon bins at 8:30 am along with extensive brunches and daily menu updates. Outside the area, there is a sitting place where a couple can have fine and fresh weather. Free Wi-Fi and plenty of sockets are available for the customers. The Timeout Love City Awards for the year 2018 consist of Bloomsburg café nominations. The company wants people to vote for them as it is their right (Boyer et al.,2002). The café is listed as one of the best cafés to bring the laptop connects to the free wife and gets the work done along with a smooth coffee. The café has huge numbers of plugs with decent music and amazing cafe taste. The food provided by the café is homemade. Talking about the Bloomsburg coffee house got attention (Heathcote, 2004).

I think the café is providing people with homemade and hygienic foodstuff. A large amount of coffee chains are running in the UK, including Costa Coffee, Starbucks, Café Nero, and many others, but people have other options, too. Competing these international chains, Bloomsburg coffees shop is providing its best services to people. As the coffee house contains great taste and a whole sharing ethos, the customers and items get involved in the friendly and decent environment of the coffee shop. The architecture of the café is great as it has designer furniture and settings (Arnot et al.,2006). Celebrities such as Nicole Kidman, Kate Moss, Madonna, and many others have visited it many times. The coffee shop has an atmosphere of casual standards and elegance. The coffee bar contains many other smoothies and drinks even though if someone does not want to eat anything, they can only drink whatever they like. The bar portion has lightning and it is always busy with the crowd (Heizer, 2016).

The cafe shop does not have a huge square yard area. However, the outside sitting is quite broad. The staff members include a general manager, assistant manager, supervisor, and bar manager. Head waiter, along with 8 waiters and 2 waitresses for the bar. The kitchen consists of a variety of chefs for the respective tastes of food and drink. 3-4 senior chefs, a head chef with 2 assistant chefs. 1 cleaner for the kitchen is hired by the café management (Pijlman et al.,2005).

2.2 Analysis Of Operational Challenges

All companies work to make their operational strategies real by putting some efficiency like knowledge, time, equipment, and the transformation of ideas into services and products. The Bloomsburg coffee shop also transforms its ideas into its services by creating its operational model known as the 4 V’s. These are variety, volume, variation, and visibility.

2.3 Volume

The Bloomsburg coffee shop is a small-level café designed with elegant interiors and furniture. However, it has a capacity of approximately 150-180 persons at a time. The shop can accommodate approximately 500-600 coffee orders. Operational key volume suggests their business organization and working.

After conducting an interview, the reporters found that waiters are always busy providing the best service to the customers. Waiters first take the order from the customers and then get to the kitchen. The kitchen procedure starts after taking the orders. The waiters are involved in overall service by providing good taste and clean food. The staff of Bloomsburg Coffee Shop is highly educated and has skills.

2.4 Variety

After looking at the menu, it is understood that the coffee shop has a huge variety of drinks, coffees, muffins, buns, and homemade sandwiches with some fast food variety. The menu consists of different dishes of fast food with 9-10 types of smoothies and drinks. Every sort of coffee is included in the menu, along with the iced tea. An extensive brunch menu is available for each day. The price is very economical for students as it ranges from 10 pounds to 100 pounds for different dishes (Gupta,2004).

The bar menu consists of different varieties of drinks such as mocktails, mojitos, smoothies (berry and vanilla), and freak shakes, and the price range is from 3 pounds. The crispy snacks and sandwiches are also present on the menu with tempuras, fish tenders, prawns, sushi, and whatever the guests require (Bradely,2015).

Sometimes, negative feedback is also seen on the trip visitor’s website. People mostly want healthy food, and they want beef cutlets and beef tataki. Although the company has a high variety of food, a single negative comment can let down the business and delivery orders by enhancing the dissatisfaction of customers (Gupta,2004).

2.5 Variation

visits to coffee shops are seasonal. The customers visit a coffee shop in winter, such as November to February. During the summer days, the coffee shop is often closed and the shortfall of customers is seen. The rise or fall in customer visits is seen regarding the seasonal conditions. As local customer visits the shop daily or maybe three to four times a day. However, London is the most visited country in the world, and foreigners are attracted to its great interior and smart look. The satisfaction of customers is related to their loyalty, so the variation is different in different seasons (Bartlett,2005).

2.6 Visibility

Bloomsburg Coffee Shop is a high-dimensioned restaurant because customers are able to see the live bar and coffee making. The kitchen is located just right of the bar, and a wooden wall discriminates the two portions (Soysa et al.,2015). Between production and consumption, there is a time lag. Some coffee shops work deliberately and prepare orders for the customers very late. Customers keep on waiting for the order and due to the high visibility of the coffee shop, it is costly for the coffee shop to maintain the expenses. As the visibility is high, the cots, skills, unit contents, and productivity are high. The brand name is well known for its customer service and production (Hoffeins,2005).

2.7 Customer Objectives And Expectations

To achieve the strategy of the company, organizations are required to identify the operational performance objectives. The respective strategies are used to understand the performance of the company. The following five performance objectives argued by journals are speed, quality, dependability, and cost (Slater et al.,2015).

Quality

Quality is the measure of providing the right food item regarding the taste of the customers. It does not mean to be expensive. The ability to meet the demands and needs of the customer that are fit for the purpose and requirements includes the quality of products, goods, and services (Kümin et al.,2017).

Customer expectation

• The quality of food must be high
• Service of food
• Brand image
• The environment must be nice

Performance against objective

The Bloomsburg coffee shop has a high brand image, and due to its image, people are attracted to it. The ability of waiters and the atmosphere of the café are absolutely amazing as it has high-quality service and food. The cafe shop is agreed to fulfill the needs of the customer if the food item is not available in the café. As the trip advisor has stated, the customer’s satisfaction on 91 percent and people have marked 4.5 stars out of 5 (Berry,2015).

Speed

In responding to customers’ demands, speed is the degree of rapid ability of actions to perform tasks (Kümin et al.,2017).

Customer’s expectation

• Quick order responses
• Fast services in the delivery

Performance against objective

Sometimes, the coffee shop faces a minor issue regarding taking and delivering orders. The newly hired staff is not trained and takes much time to get back to the customer. If the customer has to wait, he does not visit the café again. However, the chief executive of the café has discussed the matter with the waiters and the staff is trying to provide quick services as per high costs (Tomlin,2015).

Dependability

Dependability is the ability of the café to deliver the services and goods that it has promised to the customers (Kümin et al.,2017).

Customer’s expectations

• Available stock for several orders
• Queues must be minimum

Performance against expectations

Many customers have left negative feedback on the TripAdvisor website. As someone has to wait for some time, they state that they did not get anything even after waiting for an hour. The general manager of the café has stated that they are providing complimentary drinks and muffins to the customers. However, this step has affected the revenue of the café. Dependability has affected the cost rates (Soysa et al.,2015).

Flexibility

Customers expectation

• Discount
• Flexibility in Delivery time

Performance against expectation

When the purpose of flexibility is researched, customers have the flexibility to change their drinks and food items. Regular customers and members of the café get loyalty cards and discount vouchers. There is a specific 50-pound coupon for the students who visit the café daily (White,2016).

Cost

Customer expectation

• High price
• High quality
• Competitive prices

Performance against expectation

As the café is providing a high level of drinks and food items the prices are also high. To meet the best hygiene and customer service huge amount of money is required. As the relationship between costs and quality of goods in general (Soysa et al.,2015).

2.8 Process Assessment

The variety of food and drinks provided by the café is highly remarkable. However, variation is seasonal (McGlynn et al.,2015).

2.9 Process And Layout

Potential and daily based customers are targeted by the café. Customers order any sort of mocktails that are not present on the menu, and the café management tries its best to provide such orders. The policies are designed to hire waiters so that they can do every sort of work. Chefs and other administrators have two shifts depending on their payout.

2.10 5S

Representing the systematic technique, the following 5s’ are used.

Sort (Seiri)

Sometimes, the café needs extra employment, which means if they require any employee, they call him or her. If the café is not busy with the crowd, no such employee is required.

Set (Seiton)

The café has aligned a specific position for everything. It means that if they need anything specific they can get it easily.

Shine (Seiso)

Everything, everything remains functional and clean in the café. The company strategies order the management to keep the atmosphere clean and fine.

Standardize (Seiketsu)

The supervisor is appointed and his work is to make sure that the café is doing its best to provide the services.

Sustain (Shitsuke)

To keep the standards high and to improve the performance, the café has developed a commitment and pride promise (White,2016).

2.11 Layout

Layout analysis

The coffee shop has only one floor with a not very wide square yard area. It has a bar section where people can get their live drinks while standing. 8 to 9 tables are present inside the café for sitting purposes. At the right side of the bar section, the kitchen is present. For the entrance, a waitress is always standing to greet the customers. A small private dining room is there for couples or any secret meeting. The customer service office and staff office are present downstairs as this area is only for management and administration use. Outside the café, there is a large sitting area for the students. The café is up to date, and it reaches every expectation (Rankin et al., 2015).

2.12 Recommendations

1. Staff timings and speed must be increased to meet the customers’ expectations.
2. As guests have an issue while waiting for the order the café needs to enhance the dependability.
3. Improvement in the layout is required as people sometimes want to wait for their friends and family. From the bar to the sitting area there is no such space for standing even.
4. As the company loses money while providing complimentary dishes, the team must work for it.

2.13 References

1. Berry, D. M. 2015. Critical theory and the digital. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.
2. Tomlin, L. 2015. British Theatre Companies: 1995-2014: Mind the Gap, Kneehigh Theatre, Suspect Culture, Stan’s Cafe, Blast Theory, Punchdrunk (Vol. 3). Bloomsbury Publishing.
3. Bradley, K. 2015. Rational recreation in the age of affluence: the café and working-class youth in London, ca. 1939-1965.
4. Hoffeins, M. 2005. The Bloomsbury Group.
5. Bartlett, N. J. D. 2005. A double shot 2% mocha latte, please, with whip: Service encounters in two coffee shops and at a coffee cart. Second language needs analysis, 305, 43.
6. Gupta, N. 2004. Grande Wi-Fi: understanding what Wi-Fi users are doing in coffee-shops (Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
7. Arnot, C., Boxall, P. C., & Cash, S. B. 2006. Do ethical consumers care about price? A revealed preference analysis of fair trade coffee purchases. Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d’agroeconomie, 54(4), 555-565.
8. Pijlman, F. T. A., Rigter, S. M., Hoek, J., Goldschmidt, H. M. J., & Niesink, R. J. M. 2005. Strong increase in total delta‐THC in cannabis preparations sold in Dutch coffee shops. Addiction Biology, 10(2), 171-180.’
9. Boyer, K. K., Hallowell, R., & Roth, A. V. 2002. E-services: operating strategy—a case study and a method for analyzing operational benefits. Journal of Operations Management, 20(2), 175-188.
10. Heizer, J., 2016. Operations Management, 11/e. Pearson Education India.
11. Renard, M. C. 1999. The interstices of globalization: The example of fair coffee. Sociologia ruralis, 39(4), 484-500.
12. Heathcote, E. (2004). London caffs. Academy Press.
13. Ateş, A., Kılınç, C.Ç. and Sunar, H., 2014. Analysing Online Customer Experience with Tripadvisor: the Case of Konya.
14. Chen, Y.S. and Wu, S.T., 2017. Social networking practices of Viennese coffeehouse culture and intangible heritage tourism. Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, pp.1-22.
15. Rankin, S.K.N., Kamizaki, K. and McLean, H., 2015. Toronto’s Changing Neighborhoods: Gentrification of Shopping Two shopping streets in low-income, ethnically super-diverse neighborhoods of Toronto. Art galleries, boutiques, and cafés on one street, social control by the state on the other. In Global Cities, Local Streets (pp. 152-181). Routledge.
16. White, J., 2016. London in the twentieth century: a city and its people. Random House.
17. McGlynn, K.A., Petrick, J.L. and London, W.T., 2015. Global epidemiology of hepatocellular carcinoma: an emphasis on demographic and regional variability. Clinics in liver disease, 19(2), pp.223-238.
18. Slater, M.J., Barker, J.B., Coffee, P. and Jones, M.V., 2015. Leading for gold: social identity leadership processes at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 7(2), pp.192-209.
19. Kümin, B. and Tlusty, B.A., 2017. The world of the tavern: Public houses in early modern Europe. Routledge.
20. Soysa, R., Choi, S.K., Jeong, Y.W., Kim, S.J. and Choi, Y.S., 2015. Pyrolysis of Douglas fir and coffee ground and product biocrude-oil characteristics. Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis, 115, pp.51-56.