New community café for Helston: menu, prices and profit

For the past four months, a group of eight students from the University of Exeter Business School, based at the Tremough Campus, have been putting together a business plan for the viability of the café, which would be based opposite the scout hut at the King George V playing field and Coronation Gardens.

It would be built on the site of the former Helston and District Pigeon Club building that is currently at the entrance to the grassed area, at the end of Oliver’s Terrace off Meneage Street.

In January planning permission was granted for the work, which also includes demolishing the existing scout hut building and replacing it with a new scout hut and community hall as part of a wider project.

READ MORE: How new scout hut and community cafe for Helston could look

The former Helston and District Pigeon Club building currently on the site (Image: NQ staff)

The students have been working on the project with Helston’s now-departed projects officer Charlotte Caldwell, who has finalised a bid to the Community Levelling Up Programme for £200,000 as one of her final jobs in the role.

She said this figure was based on four quotes from local builders, with each of them estimating between three and four months for the work on the cafe to take place. If successful, the money would need to be spent by the end of March 2025.

On Monday the students gave a presentation to Helston’s town councillors, giving details of their business plan, which included everything from the concept to projected figures. A further discussion by the council will take place next month. 

Inside the cafe

They anticipated the café having both indoor and outdoor seating, which would include wheelchair accessible seating and furniture that was either sourced from charities or made from reclaimed wood to not only keep the cost down but reduce the impact on the environment.

On the walls would be artwork from local artists for sale.

“Sustainability” was a common theme throughout the presentation.

The students suggested getting one of the nearby schools to name the café, in the hope this would create a sense of “ownership” for anyone passing.

During site visits, the students noted an increase in footfall through the park around school times and they suggested altering the menu between morning and afternoon to fit the passing custom – giving an example of milkshakes after school.

Loyalty cards would be offered, with a particular emphasis on Royal Navy families based at RNAS Culdrose due to the café’s location close to the naval estates.

Menu and prices

The menu would centre around sandwiches, cakes and hot and cold drinks, with an emphasis on local suppliers – giving Tregothnan, the Cornish Food Box and Cornish Tea and Coffee as examples - although as a community café the intention is to keep costs lower than some commercial cafes: sandwiches £4, soup £3, tea and cake £3 and hot drinks £2.

It was suggested Soup Wednesday could offer soup at a discounted price for those experiencing food poverty, and there would be a ‘pay it forward’ scheme for people to purchase the cost of someone’s entire lunch.

The students wanted to include something for everyone, giving sandwiches examples of BLT (bacon, lettuce and tomato), vegetarian eggs sandwiches and vegan hummus and cucumber, all available on gluten free bread.

The students from the University of Exeter behind the business plan, with departing projects office Charlotte Caldwell and their course leader (Image: NQ staff)

The café would be staffed largely by volunteers, with just two paid employees – a full-time manager and a part-time assistant manager, with the remaining waiting staff, events staff and cleaner voluntary roles.

When questioned whether there were any staff for making the food, the students said this would be done by the volunteers on duty.

It was estimated that volunteers would need to contribute around five hours of their time per week, although this would fluctuate by demand.

Roughly 220 people replied to a household survey about the café, and of those, seven people said they would be keen to volunteer – which the students said would be enough, with the paid positions, to cover the opening of the café seven days a week under their set up.

The opening hours of the café were yet to be finalised.

Projected revenue and profit

The students forecast that the total projected revenue for the cafe would around £218,000 a year, based on an average spend of £4 per person (the figure indicated in the survey as what most people would be likely to spend on a visit).

This would require 152 customers per day, which they said was 9.87% of the population of Helston. They estimated an additional £6,200 in revenue from room hire, events and merchandise.

With operating expenses of £18,040, plus a speculative salary of £40,000 for the paid manager and £15,000 for the part time assistant manager (to be confirmed), this, they said, would leave a gross profit of £84,290 and an annual net profit of £11,251.

A hard copy of the business plan, going into even greater detail, will now be given to the town councillors ahead of their meeting on April 18, when they will discuss the project and proposals.

The students were thanked by the councillors for their hard work.