Having developed a love of coffee and café culture, Ilaine Anderson and her husband Andrew Huyton established the much-loved ‘La Colline Café’ in September 2009.  Being passionate about serving great coffee and providing exceptional customer service, Ilaine and Andrew found themselves relying on their previous managerial experience in running this successful café. 

Here Ilaine explains the personal journey behind opening up the café, their many learnings in the process and how having a strong network of industry experts are intrinsic to their success.


What led to you both opening the café?
Whilst living and working in the UK we started doing some serious ‘soul searching’ about what we wanted to do on our return to Australia. One of our favorite pastimes was to find new and re-visit ‘special’ previously explored cafes: from a tiny bohemian Fair Trade coffee house in a back alley in Bristol, South West England to the historical Caffe Florian in St Marks Square, Venice.  During this time we developed a desire to open our own café and create a special environment delivering excellent products and service that our customers would savor.  So on our return to Australia in late 2008, Andrew started the lengthy and arduous process of looking for a café to buy.

We discovered our ‘perfect café’ in the Chevron complex (the corner of St Kilda and Commercial Rds) which was called ‘Café La Colline’.  We took formal ownership of the business in September 2009, but Andrew had been working in the café since July.  I joined him (after resigning from my corporate career) mid- September.
 
Tell me about what was involved in establishing the café
After returning from the UK I continued working full time whilst Andrew began researching full time on the type of café we wanted and all the other important aspects of a cafe business e.g. location, size, hours, turnover, coffee etc. 

Andrew sought out experts in the café industry to ensure he gathered as many learnings as possible.  For example he visited many local coffee roasters and learned about their products, support that they provided business owners etc.

Importantly to grow a deeper understanding of why cafes are unsuccessful (because so may aren’t) Andrew visited literally hundreds of cafes and observed what made them tick.  Our weekends were packed full of café visits – targeting those cafes that had been recognized by the industry for being either good at food or coffee or service or a combination of all the above.

What were some of the traits he noticed between excellent and average cafes?
Well the first thing he noticed with the excellent cafes was their exceptional customer service.  Service staff attitude was vital to a good customer experience.  They knew the names of their regular customers, including the coffee they drink.  The service people had a ‘relationship’ with their customers.  Understanding your clientele and ensuring your products, services and environment (e.g. food offering) are suited to that type of customer is critical. For example if you have a broad customer base of all age groups – understand that your older customers will not appreciate loud techno/house music  (they will find another café) – you may need to find a more mainstream music collection.

Lastly, the excellent cafes all served great coffee.  Even in Melbourne a city renowned for their love of coffee, only 5% of cafes serve great coffee.

As to the ‘average’ cafes – well everything that’s the opposite of the above.

What were some of the challenges that faced your way?
When we first bought the café, we consciously decided not to make any immediate changes so as to not alienate the existing customers (the previous owner had the café opened for two and a half years beforehand).  However, three months later we changed our coffee supplier to Veneziano Caffe.  At first a small amount of the customers were not happy with this change.  Even a few of our staff were opposed to the change because we then started to enforce new processes for making our coffee – all very important to ensure our coffee improved. Over time though, word got around that our new coffee brand was excellent, and we began attracting more new customers who became our regular customers. 

The single biggest challenge that we have faced in this industry has been to find excellent staff.  We have very high expectations on what is/is not good customer service.  Unfortunately we found that too many staff were not as passionate about customer service excellence as we.  It took us a year to finally find the team we have today that are very dedicated and very good at ensuring our customers are well looked after.

What has been some of the rewards?
Our biggest reward has been the increasing number of repeat customers.  As the number of our regulars grew, so did the many different types of coffee they drink – it became hard to remember.  We have created a simple spreadsheet with the names of over 200 patrons and the coffee they drink (these are only the customers who come in every day).  This means that we not only remember the customers’ names, but also more importantly their orders.  Our customers like this.

Another reward has been the strong relationship that we have formed with our coffee supplier, ‘Veneziano’.  They have been exceptional in keeping regular contact with us, providing exceptional training to our new staff, follow up training for existing staff and keeping us up to date with industry changes.  When we open the next café without question we would continue to use Veneziano Caffe.

Lastly, the smile that we put on customers always reminds us why we do what we do.   Being close to Alfred Hospital means that we get a lot of patients and/or family of loved ones, some who are seriously sick in hospital.  It is always lovely to have these customers look happier when they leave the café and/or come back to us again.  In fact recently, one of our customers who had a daughter in intensive care for weeks, thanked us for providing him with a ‘sanctuary out of the chaos [the hospital].”  Receiving compliments like this always reminds us why we opened this café in the first place!

Any funny moments?
Serving the general public will always provide a smorgasbord of funny moments.  One recent moment was a customer complaining that her long black coffee didn’t have any milk in it!  A delicate conversation followed…

What advice do you give to someone wanting to open their own café?
We can’t stress enough the need to do your homework.  Andrew and I were very methodical and detailed in our approach to purchase the café – we had a very long list of what we wanted, in addition to producing comprehensive financial analysis of the business.  The risks of not doing your homework are too great when the upfront investment is considerable.

Also, surround yourself with people (industry experts) in whom you can trust – who can give you valuable industry insights.  Our coffee consultant from Veneziano Angelo, has been invaluable in providing us with support ever since we opened.  We hired a café consultant Rita Srblin whose insights have been significant in ensuring our success financially.  Our Accountant Mat Boyes, has also assisted us navigate the nightmare of small business administration. From our experience it is imperative to have excellent relationship with key suppliers – they can be the make or break of your business.