jessicas dad:
well to be honest steve i wont becoming to eat your over priced breakfast without tea because people are eat their own sarnies in your carpark.
Dunno then?:
jessicas dad:
well to be honest steve i wont becoming to eat your over priced breakfast without tea because people are eat their own sarnies in your carpark.
i dont know what happened there… proberley alcohol.
WAYWEST:
With reference to the WiFI I am trying to get the Broadest Bandwidth so the number of users aren’t affected and the speed is constant and unfortunately I don’t have the funding that Macdonalds have and the better quality I want the more I have to pay. With reference to people coming into the cafe to get the code off a poster in the Cafe, we have drivers that park on the car park and either go to the garage to purchase something or just sit there and eat their own sandwiches even when the signs say parking for Cafe patrons only.
You have to dangle the bait to catch em, its not as if your going to need a huge amount of bandwidth as there not enough parking, even if everyones logged on to drag down the speed.
nothing stopping you moving the goal posts later on though once regular clientel are established.
Also at £580 rent per week + other bills, thats a lot of dinners to cook before you cover your overheads.
Somehow I see things going the same way long term, as the cafe just south of blyth MSA, with owner having a huge amount of enthusiasm, but little chance of becoming a mi££ionare out of it. Which is probably why its been taken over 3-4 times by new owners in the last 2-3yrs
PS, can you put a no exit sign at the entrance slip, as I nearly wiped some fool out exiting that point this afternoon, as they where too stupid to drive around the back, or thru the garage to the longer exit slip road
Called in just after lunchtime today. Everything was good; food was fine, place was clean, chatty friendly staff.
Seemed to have more car than truck customers - no problems parking though!! 
Hi People
Just a quick update. WiFi is now in operation.
Cheers
Steve
WAYWEST:
Hi PeopleJust a quick update. WiFi is now in operation.
Cheers
Steve
but is it still nearly sick squid for a normal breakfast with a drink
ive never used your cafe so i carnt comment but as a suggestion instead of refills just add the tea or coffee to every breakfast, i would never pay 6 quid for a brekkie but enjoy a bacon n mushroom toastie, if its summit truckers hate most is paying for overpriced tripe at the services thats why we try and locate familiy run cafes for personel friendly service at an affordable price seems most of the gripes in this thread is about trying to balance out the pricing of the brekkie so you make a living and the punters return, i will defo call in though even for a coffee to try and do my bit
Hi Steve & gill, I havn’t had chance to call again since I started this thread, I have been mainly on the other side of the country, but I have read with interest the comments made by other drivers who have called in to try you out,and the changes you are making to try to accomodate everyone.Dont worry about the negative comments you cannot please everyone, but I do agree that a drink should be included with a meal, I wish you all the luck in the world and I will call in again when I can. Cheers Rocky 7 
jessicas dad:
the special brekkie is over priced at £5.95, should be about £4.50 and the smaller breakfast about £3.70 and tea should always be included … whats the price of a tea bag.containerbase in leeds has a blinding cafe doing really nice breakfast for £3.50 inc tea.
Steve & Gill, I am from Leeds like Alex as well so it’s unlikely I’ll stop there due to you being so close to home, but I agree with Alex’s comments above. Your prices from brekkies are pie-in-the-sky. These are London prices you’re charging. Pearl’s cafe (a portakabin) on Doncaster road just on the way out of the South Elmsall Ind Est charges £3.70 (was a year ago, may have gone up a bit since) for a large breakfast and that is 4 bacon, 2 sos, egg, beans, toms, 4 slice of toast and a brew, and it is good quality tasty food. I grant you that that is extraordinarily cheap, but that’s what you’re up against. For £4.70 in Yorks I’d expect 2 bacon, 2 sos, egg, beans, toms/mush, fried slice, 2 toast, bottomless cup, and it would need to fill a normal size dinner plate. I know these comments will grate with you, especially as you’re trying your best to make cash at it and look after the drivers, but unfortunately you ain’t gonna have people queueing up with those prices.
Your £5 for an evening meal sounds more realistic, especially if you’re providing a plate piled high like most of the trucker cafes do. Even £5.50 heading for £6 is acceptable for an evening meal if it’s something like lamb shank, pots, mix of 2 veg, gravy etc.
Furthermore, you’re being a tight arse over the brews 
. The brews are probably your biggest profit spinner in terms of food/drink as you’re making 90% profit on each one sold (how much is a box of teabags, big jar of coffee and some hot water?). Obviously you need to sell a lot of them to get rich, but excluding them from a £4.70 or £5.95 brekkie is just taking the ■■■■ and will see your custom fall faster than a piano out of a tower block window.
It’s not all doom and gloom though, because I have solutions for you which will see your profits increase substantially AND get the drivers coming in . What you need to do is significantly raise the overnight parking charge from £4. 
The services typically charge £18-25 per truck these days and that includes a £7 meal voucher but of course that doesn’t buy you much in the services and the food is crap anyway. As a general rule, private cafes such as yourself will charge £10-15 per truck, but £5 of that will be a meal voucher. As the vast majority of overnighting truckers get their parking costs paid for by the company, what you need to do is charge £15+ per truck for an overnight but included in the price is a £5 meal voucher (do it as one ticket which just has £15 parking on it and your site name and address - DO NOT mention the meal voucher/price on the ticket as drivers will want to claim back the full £15 from their company. If it shows any mention of a meal voucher then some tight arse companies won’t pay it and that means it has to come out of the drivers pocket = unhappy driver that might go elsewhere to a cafe that does overnight tickets without any mention of it . You with me? ). This of course means you’ve now increased your profits by £6 for every truck that stops overnight and also gets rid of the self-catering bunch taking up valuable spaces because they ain’t gonna pay £15 and self-cater .
There is a downside to this though… It means you’ll have to open into the evening, probably til 9pm, but it will be worth it profit wise.
You say you’ve got an alcohol licence for the place already - why don’t you capitalise on that by staying open even later, say til 11pm? I know you are probably screaming at the screen shouting “and when are we supposed to have some time off?” but the answer is simple… Don’t open until lunchtime. Unless you can bring your brekkie prices down to a sensible level AND still make a decent profit from it, you are wasting your time opening in the mornings. Your real money is to be made from the overnighter’s !
I have even more ideas for you ! Get some flyers printed with your opening times, menu & prices and most importantly, a telephone number to call. A lot of the time us busy truckers are running late but want to make sure we get a ■■■■■■■■■■■■ and some hot food. By including a number to call, you can have your regular’s call you and ask you to reserve a ■■■■■■■■■■■■ with some cones whilst ordering their food at the same time and giving you an ETA. You’ve instantly got yourself another tenner profit plus whatever you make on the food, plus you have a very happy trucker who will appreciate your efforts, come back again and tell all his trucker mates.
And finally, if the parking area is a reasonably good surface, get yourself some tins of all-weather white paint and paint parking space lines on the ground so that the truckers park in them and maximise your custom. If you don’t do this you’ll get them parking with nearly a full truck width between them which will reduce your potential custom by around 40%. The lines will wear off after a month or so, so you’ll need to redo them regularly but it’ll be worth it in the long run. Useful tip: go to the truck parking area at Ferrybridge and measure the distance between the lines to find out how far you need to place them apart.
You CAN make decent money at this. You just need to adapt to your market. Let me know your thoughts.
I believe I deserve one of your overpriced £5.95 brekkies for my efforts!
Well I sent the guy a text shortly after posting here to alert him that I’ve posted some useful ideas but he hasn’t even had the decency to ackowledge or reply. 
Maybe I should’ve kept schtum and let him go under, which is inevitably what will happen with his current business model.
I have to say that RobK’s idea is very good. Take note Waywest! Or at least say thank you!
Just drove past. Place looked deserted.
RobK:
jessicas dad:
the special brekkie is over priced at £5.95, should be about £4.50 and the smaller breakfast about £3.70 and tea should always be included … whats the price of a tea bag.containerbase in leeds has a blinding cafe doing really nice breakfast for £3.50 inc tea.
Steve & Gill, I am from Leeds like Alex as well so it’s unlikely I’ll stop there due to you being so close to home, but I agree with Alex’s comments above. Your prices from brekkies are pie-in-the-sky. These are London prices you’re charging. Pearl’s cafe (a portakabin) on Doncaster road just on the way out of the South Elmsall Ind Est charges £3.70 (was a year ago, may have gone up a bit since) for a large breakfast and that is 4 bacon, 2 sos, egg, beans, toms, 4 slice of toast and a brew, and it is good quality tasty food. I grant you that that is extraordinarily cheap, but that’s what you’re up against. For £4.70 in Yorks I’d expect 2 bacon, 2 sos, egg, beans, toms/mush, fried slice, 2 toast, bottomless cup, and it would need to fill a normal size dinner plate. I know these comments will grate with you, especially as you’re trying your best to make cash at it and look after the drivers, but unfortunately you ain’t gonna have people queueing up with those prices.
Your £5 for an evening meal sounds more realistic, especially if you’re providing a plate piled high like most of the trucker cafes do. Even £5.50 heading for £6 is acceptable for an evening meal if it’s something like lamb shank, pots, mix of 2 veg, gravy etc.
Furthermore, you’re being a tight arse over the brews
It’s not all doom and gloom though, because I have solutions for you which will see your profits increase substantially AND get the drivers coming in
There is a downside to this though… It means you’ll have to open into the evening, probably til 9pm, but it will be worth it profit wise.
You say you’ve got an alcohol licence for the place already - why don’t you capitalise on that by staying open even later, say til 11pm? I know you are probably screaming at the screen shouting “and when are we supposed to have some time off?” but the answer is simple… Don’t open until lunchtime. Unless you can bring your brekkie prices down to a sensible level AND still make a decent profit from it, you are wasting your time opening in the mornings. Your real money is to be made from the overnighter’s !
I have even more ideas for you
And finally, if the parking area is a reasonably good surface, get yourself some tins of all-weather white paint and paint parking space lines on the ground so that the truckers park in them and maximise your custom. If you don’t do this you’ll get them parking with nearly a full truck width between them which will reduce your potential custom by around 40%. The lines will wear off after a month or so, so you’ll need to redo them regularly but it’ll be worth it in the long run. Useful tip: go to the truck parking area at Ferrybridge and measure the distance between the lines to find out how far you need to place them apart.
You CAN make decent money at this. You just need to adapt to your market.
I believe I deserve one of your overpriced £5.95
Hi There
Thanks for the info and apologies for the delay in replying. I have been extremely busy and can only access the internet when I am at the cafe so it is difficult to reply to such a large posting and cover the points raised but I have been doing a little at a time.
With reference to raising the overnight parking it is difficult enough to get drivers to pay the £4.00 and I don’t think the facilities at this moment in time justify a major increase, but who knows what the future might bring. I give drivers a receipt for £10 when they park overnight so there is a small incentive for them to park some of the drivers buy food in the cafe and some prefer to use it later in the day and that’s fine by me.
When we came here in March we opened from 6.am till 6pm and some evenings I wasn’t getting out till about 9.15pm. What we have found is that we do very little business between 3pm and 5.30pm and then we may get 1 or 2 drivers between 5.30 and 6.30 which keeps you till late, what we are doing now is closing between 3 & 4 if we are empty. When we initially took over the food bill for the cafe was around the £200 per week mark and it is now between £900 & £1100 per week so business is improving all the time. We printed flyers when we first came here and also advertise in and distribute copies of Truck stop News. We find the drivers that eat here return on a regular basis and quite a lot cut back when they are heading north. With regards to marking the car park it is not even enough to set out bays and it is difficult to keep the landlord maintaining the level but it is getting better.
With reference to the alcohol licence it had been obtained under the magistrate system and now it has to be re applied or through the council so that’s one for the future.
The most talked about topic PRICES (LOL) we have a split clientele half drivers half general public probably more general public than drivers but we do have a lot of drivers. Drivers think we may be too expensive, general public can’t believe how cheap we are. What has to be kept in mind is we are on the motorway and in comparison with motorway services we serve quality food at reasonable prices.
I/We are not looking to make millions but a reasonable living for ourselves in ratio with the time we put in I personally get here about 4.15 am and my partner about 6.am. I enjoy the crack and banter with the drivers that come in and will continue to do so contrary to the comment “will probably go under”. I have given drivers that have run out of time and had no money free meals and drinks and they have come back and used the facilities.
Once again RobK thanks for all the comments and I will try and keep more regular contact and you are certainly welcome to a brekki for your thoughts and effort.
Cheers
Steve
WAYWEST:
The most talked about topic PRICES (LOL) we have a split clientele half drivers half general public probably more general public than drivers but we do have a lot of drivers. Drivers think we may be too expensive, general public can’t believe how cheap we are. What has to be kept in mind is we are on the motorway and in comparison with motorway services we serve quality food at reasonable prices.
Steve
Why not import an idea from the continent re prices then.
Start a drivers club type scheme up.
At Op Den Bult you can pay 5euro (I think it was) for a card that gives you 10% discount on food this card lasts you for a year.
How about a similar scheme over here■■?
Seems like a good idea will be worth looking into
WAYWEST:
RobK:
jessicas dad:
the special brekkie is over priced at £5.95, should be about £4.50 and the smaller breakfast about £3.70 and tea should always be included … whats the price of a tea bag.containerbase in leeds has a blinding cafe doing really nice breakfast for £3.50 inc tea.
Steve & Gill, I am from Leeds like Alex as well so it’s unlikely I’ll stop there due to you being so close to home, but I agree with Alex’s comments above. Your prices from brekkies are pie-in-the-sky. These are London prices you’re charging. Pearl’s cafe (a portakabin) on Doncaster road just on the way out of the South Elmsall Ind Est charges £3.70 (was a year ago, may have gone up a bit since) for a large breakfast and that is 4 bacon, 2 sos, egg, beans, toms, 4 slice of toast and a brew, and it is good quality tasty food. I grant you that that is extraordinarily cheap, but that’s what you’re up against. For £4.70 in Yorks I’d expect 2 bacon, 2 sos, egg, beans, toms/mush, fried slice, 2 toast, bottomless cup, and it would need to fill a normal size dinner plate. I know these comments will grate with you, especially as you’re trying your best to make cash at it and look after the drivers, but unfortunately you ain’t gonna have people queueing up with those prices.
Your £5 for an evening meal sounds more realistic, especially if you’re providing a plate piled high like most of the trucker cafes do. Even £5.50 heading for £6 is acceptable for an evening meal if it’s something like lamb shank, pots, mix of 2 veg, gravy etc.
Furthermore, you’re being a tight arse over the brews
It’s not all doom and gloom though, because I have solutions for you which will see your profits increase substantially AND get the drivers coming in
There is a downside to this though… It means you’ll have to open into the evening, probably til 9pm, but it will be worth it profit wise.
You say you’ve got an alcohol licence for the place already - why don’t you capitalise on that by staying open even later, say til 11pm? I know you are probably screaming at the screen shouting “and when are we supposed to have some time off?” but the answer is simple… Don’t open until lunchtime. Unless you can bring your brekkie prices down to a sensible level AND still make a decent profit from it, you are wasting your time opening in the mornings. Your real money is to be made from the overnighter’s !
I have even more ideas for you
And finally, if the parking area is a reasonably good surface, get yourself some tins of all-weather white paint and paint parking space lines on the ground so that the truckers park in them and maximise your custom. If you don’t do this you’ll get them parking with nearly a full truck width between them which will reduce your potential custom by around 40%. The lines will wear off after a month or so, so you’ll need to redo them regularly but it’ll be worth it in the long run. Useful tip: go to the truck parking area at Ferrybridge and measure the distance between the lines to find out how far you need to place them apart.
You CAN make decent money at this. You just need to adapt to your market.
I believe I deserve one of your overpriced £5.95
Hi There
Thanks for the info and apologies for the delay in replying. I have been extremely busy and can only access the internet when I am at the cafe so it is difficult to reply to such a large posting and cover the points raised but I have been doing a little at a time.With reference to raising the overnight parking it is difficult enough to get drivers to pay the £4.00 and I don’t think the facilities at this moment in time justify a major increase, but who knows what the future might bring. I give drivers a receipt for £10 when they park overnight so there is a small incentive for them to park some of the drivers buy food in the cafe and some prefer to use it later in the day and that’s fine by me.
When we came here in March we opened from 6.am till 6pm and some evenings I wasn’t getting out till about 9.15pm. What we have found is that we do very little business between 3pm and 5.30pm and then we may get 1 or 2 drivers between 5.30 and 6.30 which keeps you till late, what we are doing now is closing between 3 & 4 if we are empty. When we initially took over the food bill for the cafe was around the £200 per week mark and it is now between £900 & £1100 per week so business is improving all the time. We printed flyers when we first came here and also advertise in and distribute copies of Truck stop News. We find the drivers that eat here return on a regular basis and quite a lot cut back when they are heading north. With regards to marking the car park it is not even enough to set out bays and it is difficult to keep the landlord maintaining the level but it is getting better.
With reference to the alcohol licence it had been obtained under the magistrate system and now it has to be re applied or through the council so that’s one for the future.
The most talked about topic PRICES (LOL) we have a split clientele half drivers half general public probably more general public than drivers but we do have a lot of drivers. Drivers think we may be too expensive, general public can’t believe how cheap we are. What has to be kept in mind is we are on the motorway and in comparison with motorway services we serve quality food at reasonable prices.
I/We are not looking to make millions but a reasonable living for ourselves in ratio with the time we put in I personally get here about 4.15 am and my partner about 6.am. I enjoy the crack and banter with the drivers that come in and will continue to do so contrary to the comment “will probably go under”. I have given drivers that have run out of time and had no money free meals and drinks and they have come back and used the facilities.
Once again RobK thanks for all the comments and I will try and keep more regular contact and you are certainly welcome to a brekki for your thoughts and effort.
Cheers
Steve
Not really sure what to make of your reply. From all your apparently happy Joe Public customers, it sounds like you don’t need trade from truckers so good luck with it. Suffice to say that closing at 4pm and charging £6 for a breakfast is not going to see you any regular trade from truckers anyway. You clearly disagree, but from someone that enjoys his breakfasts and regularly travels around the country, the prices you are charging are extortionate. You’d probably even get change from your prices in London.
There’s no money in doing breakfasts and closing in the afternoon. The money is to be made from providing evening meals and overnight parking. Colsterworth, J23, J29 and - to a lesser degree - Whitwood, are all shining examples of this. By the way, all those places are also on motorways (Colsterworth on the A1) and you can get a breakfast for under a fiver and an evening meal for under £6, so your argument that your prices are justified because you’re on a motorway (which you are not, by the way) holds no water.
I fear a reality check is in order. Sorry.
Hi Again
Thanks for the comments. A reality check was taken and that’s why we started closing earlier, standing here for 4 hours in the evening for four and a half months and taking £20 is as real as it gets. We have turned the business round from doing £100 a day to averaging £500 a day. Like I said in previous postings Drivers come back to us and turn off when heading north so we must be doing something right. Never had a complaint about the quality or portion size with regards the food, and I do cater for drivers but until you give us a try you don’t know that. The all day breakfast is £4.70.
Cheers
Steve