The edge is college kids are not loyal. When I lived in Gainesville there was a place called 5 Star Pizza. They stayed open every night till 4am and ran sick specials like a large cheese pizza for 1.99!!!! When you are in college and you are living cheap, no need to pay for branding. Well these guys won over the business and they made a killing. They use to have 40 to 50 pizza drivers every night from Wed to Sat. In a town like Gainesville, the business is up for grabs. That my friend is as close to an edge as you are going to find. If 5 Star Pizza set up shop in Chicago today, they would be out of business within a month.
Re coffee margin. At least on the surface the margin looks great but a place like star bucks is paying anywhere from 200 - 400k for a coffee maker. they aren't using some "Mr coffee" maker like they use at joe's diner. There's prosecuted case of franchise owners not using DD brand coffee @ their franchises. Some poor slob trying to stay in business in spite of the franchise rip off's.
So it is the coffee maker which makes it taste so damn good?? I always wondered why i cant just buy the shops coffee beans and make it taste like it would in the shop, until this point i assumed it was just another one of lifes big fuck jobs.
What always got me was, "now with real cheese". Does anyone wonder what they used before? And if they used fake cheese before they found God, what other stuff are they still faking? You know there is some accountant who comes stumbling out with a spread sheet saying, "you know, crushed tomatoes are our most expensive ingredient, and if we replaced that with #40 dye and some sawdust mixed with water..........." I'll make my own too, 7. Too many call nights where you'd pull that slice the it was so heavy the end sagged and the grease ran off in a stream. those places all employ chemists. No thanks.