The Instant Coffee Shop: How to Open a Cafe in a Week by Darcy Millar

If you read this book and absorb its contents, once you have secured a site and stocked up with the minimum necessary equipment, you will be able to serve your first cup of coffee within seven days. It won't be easy - it may even be the hardest working week of your life - but it is certainly doable. I know, because I have done it myself.

The book even includes a seven-day countdown to opening, with tips on cost-effective short cuts and an invaluable list of key pitfalls to avoid. This is a complete practical guide and manual to opening a modern coffee shop, covering every aspect with detailed, step-by-step advice on subjects from the essential how to brew good coffee to how to design and fit out a venue that suits your aims, whatever your budget. There is much more to running a successful coffee shop than pouring a good coffee.

You'll learn how to strike a balance between take-aways and sit-down business; how to promote your coffee shop, importantly via social media; how to attract and retain the best staff; how to interact with customers and build the regular clientele which is the lifeblood of any cafe; and how to balance the needs of freelancers looking for a place to work while also creating a lively, friendly atmosphere and generating turnover. You will be shown how to profitably expand your food offering to serve alongside the coffee - you'd be amazed at what you can achieve with a single toastie machine - and learn the advantages of a commercial dishwasher, along with much, much more. All this invaluable practical information is leavened with the story of my personal experience as a student funding my living expenses through part-time jobs in hospitality, gradually training on the job as a barista, before finally founding my own one-man coffee shop in Copenhagen - with a minimal budget but plenty of sheer enthusiasm.

Less than four years later, my two bustling Darcy's Kaffes are busy seven days a week on prominent streets in Copenhagen, my branded tuk-tuk operates as a mobile events coffee bar, and I employ eighteen staff. This book tells the story of how I did it, and shows you how you can do it, too.