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John Denny and Karen Grima of Little Bean Café in New South Wales on their transition from the world of pubs and pints to cafés and cappuccinos – and how roaster Piazzo D’Oro facilitated the move.
When taking over an already established café, new owners often face the challenge of striking the balance between injecting their own personality and keeping existing customers happy. Change too much and happy regulars might go elsewhere; be complacent and you might miss out on a whole new market.
For experienced hospitality and marketing professionals, but first-time café owners, John Denny and Karen Grima, the process of taking over Little Bean Café in Mount Annan, New South Wales, was made much easier by the café’s existing partnership with roaster Piazzo D’Oro.
“Little Bean Café has been established within the Mount Annan Marketplace for around eight or nine years, and we’re the third generation to run it,” says John.
“We are now in our fourth month at the café and we’re really enjoying it. We’ve got a great clientele, it’s really diverse – from families visiting the playground area to shoppers picking up a coffee on the go and retirees stopping by to catch up with friends.”
The 50-seater venue serves a mix of takeaway and dine-in customers throughout the week, with a growing menu of house-made meals, treats, and cakes complementing the Italian-style coffee.
“Being in the hospitality industry for more than 25 years, we had the opportunity to switch to one of the other coffee suppliers we’d worked with previously, but we were really happy with the blend Piazza D’Oro was already supplying,” says John.
The coffee in question is Piazza D’Oro’s Mezzo blend, which Karen and John describe as “a characteristic coffee with notes of milk chocolate and caramel, with a tasteful finish”. The medium-roast Rainforest Alliance-certified coffee is the brand’s flagship blend, inspired by its Italian heritage.
“Leading into the acquisition of the café, we sat down with Matthew Green from Piazzo D’Oro and went through the products and how they could assist us,” says John.
“We also spent time talking to the locals to find out what they thought of the coffee. There are three cafés in this complex, so there’s a lot of competition, but the feedback we received was overwhelmingly supportive of us continuing with Piazzo D’Oro.”
Image: Piazza D’Oro
According to John, it was this customer feedback and the support Matthew provided that ultimately won him and Karen over. In the initial takeover period, John says the Piazzo D’Oro team touched base daily and helped them ease into café life.
“Now we’re a few months in, Matt still pops in almost every week to see how we’re getting on,” says Karen.
“When we had an issue with a grinder recently, he went above and beyond to ensure we were up and running again as quickly as possible.”
As well as providing coffee and maintenance support, Piazzo D’Oro also helped Little Bean Café 3.0 off the ground with marketing assistance and materials. New flags and banners in the car park with both companies’ branding draws attention to the café and shows customers where they can get their hands on a cup of Piazzo D’Oro coffee.
“The team have also helped us out with loyalty cards, and offer a promotional fund for us to utilise, which we’ll take advantage of in the coming months,” adds John.
With less than six months at Little Bean under their belt, John and Karen are taking things slowly, building trust and loyalty with their customers before making any grand changes or introducing too many new ideas.
“We anticipate making some changes in the future, but for the moment we’re focusing on doing the basics well. We’ve had fantastic feedback so far, with nearly all five-star reviews online,” says John.
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This article appears in the August/September 2024 edition of BeanScene. Subscribe HERE.
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