The second café goes to Rue Oberkampf

The first shop taught us one thing about location: a coffee bar lives on the walk to work. It sells 60% of the day before 10:30, and it needs to be seen from both directions by people who are already moving. The Oberkampf unit is a true corner, forty metres from the Parmentier metro exit, on the side of the street the morning flow uses. The canal site is prettier and we would sell more cake there in the afternoon, but the afternoon is not what pays the rent.

All three sit within twenty minutes’ walk of the Faubourg Saint-Denis shop, close enough to share a roaster delivery and a manager, far enough not to share customers. Oberkampf is the only one on a morning commuter route; the other two are destinations.

We counted people passing each doorway for three weekdays in August, the quietest month, so every number here is a floor. The two curves are mirror images. Oberkampf carries 3,800 people an hour past the door at 08:00 and settles to a steady lunch; the canal is empty at breakfast and fills from five in the evening, when a coffee bar with no licence is closing. To make the canal site work we would have to become a wine bar, which is a different business.

Charonne is the site everyone liked on the visit and the one the model likes least: the terrace is superb, and the rent plus the works it needs push break-even past two years. The canal site is cheaper to fit out and dead until eleven. Oberkampf wins on the two numbers that matter, morning footfall and rent, and on the one clause that matters, the break.

The model runs the same site through three ramps. The number to hold onto is the slow case: even if Oberkampf opens at half the first shop’s pace and stays there for six months, the loan is still serviced and the break clause is never needed.

Financing is the long pole and it is nearly done: the bank approved €90k of the €130k loan on the first shop’s accounts and wants the signed lease for the rest. Fit-out quotes are in from two of the three builders we trust. Hiring starts once the date is fixed; the first shop’s head barista has already said yes to running the counter.

Same bones as the first shop: a long counter on the window side so the queue is visible from the street, twenty seats inside, twelve on the corner terrace, and a bench along the back wall for laptops after ten. The fit-out budget is €62k, with the espresso machine and grinders bought outright rather than leased, because the lease terms on the first shop’s machine cost more over four years than the machine did.

The canal site led on every visit. It lost in one exchange, when the footfall counts came back and the shape of the day became visible.

1. Send the signed lease and the builder’s contract to the bank the week of 28 September.
2. Post the three barista roles in October, with the head barista from the first shop running interviews.
3. Re-run the footfall count in a cold week of November to check the August floor holds.
4. Bring the month-three numbers back to this page in June and compare them with the base case.