Requirements for coffee/food kiosk

disssco

Hello,

I would like to operate a small kiosk near the beach during the summer from a trailer that would be towed away every evening and set up every morning.

I want to sell normal coffee, "health" coffees, cold drinks, frozen ice creams, strawberries and cream and fruit smoothies.

What do I have to do to make this legal? What paperwork is required and what standards to I have to meet?

If I wanted to leave out some plastic tables and chairs would I need extra clearance?

What about some music, not blaring obviously but audible to customers sitting down to enjoy their coffee?

Appreciate anyinput, apologise for my ignorance, I have zero experience in this kind of field so I am doing the recon now!

VincePP

Forget it is what I'd say.

Firstly you'll need a casual traders licence, then you'll need permission to trade there, you will need to inform your local envirnomnental health officer and get inspected. You'll have to follow all food and safety legislation and keep haccp records. If you have tables and chairs you will need toilet facilities.

Then you'll need to convince people at the beach to buy "healthy" - that's the hardest part. They are on a day out, they will want to treat themselves and they will simply want Ice cream, crisps, coke and sweets.

Simply have a look at any beach and see what sells - takeaway coffee and health drinks are unfortunately way way down the popularity list.

Go to a farmers market and ask one of the people operating there what is required - most have a coffee stand of some sort and there's probably a good reason why they don't set up at a beach.

jimmii

I would have thought the same but at Portobello beach in Edinburgh there's a couple who sell loose leaf tea and all sorts of coffee I had never heard of out of a camper Van we had to queue up 10 minutes to get a tea a couple of weeks ago!

They are quite established though and I would have my reservations as to whether something like that would work elsewhere. You could always see if it's not too expensive to try for a couple of weekends and see how it goes you never know.

irishmoss

jimmii wrote: »

I would have thought the same but at Portobello beach in Edinburgh there's a couple who sell loose leaf tea and all sorts of coffee I had never heard of out of a camper Van we had to queue up 10 minutes to get a tea a couple of weeks ago!>>

I think the company is called Stampunk Coffee. Love the converted Vw campers, if I had the money I would invest in one of these and have it all painted in hippy 60's style. Have seen them in Holland, brilliant idea and if you have good coffee I think it would work. And if it works in Scotland it should work here, I think we are bigger spenders than the Scots 😀

jimmii

Yeh they have an amazing cafe in North Berwick too. They have the van to Stockbridge market at the weekend too assume it's the same one maybe they have a few.

https://www.steampunkcoffee.co.uk

melissak

It is not very hard to get the certs for food safety etc if everything is in order. Contact the food safety people in your area and they will let you know what you need. I think having takeaway stuff would be much easier regulation wise than tables i would guess but id imagine icecreams etc would be the big sellers anyway. Contact the council re trading licences etc, afaik they are also very helpful.

DubTony

And don't forget that many ice-cream people are quite territorial. Don't step on the wrong toes in that game.

melissak

DubTony wrote: »

And don't forget that many ice-cream people are quite territorial. Don't step on the wrong toes in that game.

Really? That music all day would make me agro tbf.