Cost Price Cafe

Have you ever shelled out in excess of $5 for a cup of coffee while listening to the voice in the back of your head remind you that $5 is the cost of half a sack of goon? Perhaps you fronted your home loan deposit to pay for your smashed avo to impress your date with your financial prowess? Or was it the side salad? Sure, it looked sexy, that drizzle of balsamic, and the artistic placement of the bean sprouts like a tiny monument on display at the Louvre. But that part of your mind whispers eloquently “Nah mate, that’s like 15 cents of rabbit food for $11”.

And you know it’s true. You saw the prices that time you went to Woolies and pretended to choose ingredients for a salad before slipping off, shamefully, to the pre-packaged frozen meals isle.

Well. Food from a café or restaurant has a markup, and although varying, it is significant. That’s where we came up with the idea of Cost Price Café.

Cost price café has two primary aims;

1 - To serve high quality, delicious and healthy food
2 - To operate entirely without making a profit

How will we achieve this?

Core, essential costs such as wages, rent and produce will not just be the foundation of our pricing system, they will guide and set it. All profit made on the food one day will carry over into the following day, reducing the price of food below cost until the profit hits $0.

In the same way, in the event of needing to replace broken equipment, cutlery or furniture, this process will be reversed, with prices going up slightly until the profit in the budget accommodates for the purchase. Sort of like how Howard brought in GST back in 2000, only we actually remove it after it serves its purpose rather than sponging off it like a parasite and hiking it up after a cooling off period.

Above - Coffee cost comparison showing how bulk sales brings down the price


The people most impacted by such a business will be students, senior citizens, single parents, every person on Centrelink ever, the homeless and destitute, and pretty much anyone who purchased a home after 2005.

This entirety of the business model will operate with 100% transparency; all figures will be available for public viewing, such as sales, rent, wages, electricity etc. And while the pricing will change, it will only change with the essential costs, for example if the cost of milk, or avocado, or tomato goes up. Or if we’re forced by law to pay our employees more than the slave-wage that passes for the current award rate. That kind of thing.

Every fortnight our website (And our menu) will update the public and reveal how much money was made, where it is being purposed to. This is designed to develop a trusting relationship between the community and our flagship store presence.

Flagship you say? That’s right, this project is operating as a litmus test for the system. Proof the theorem works.

And if it does, the opportunities for expansion are endless. Cost price houses? Cost price medication? Perhaps a future without corporate overlords can be a thing. This test will be a big step in the right direction.

Money time

This is the part where we tell you how much money we need and hope that idea Cost Price Café has inspired you as much as it has us. To the Tune of $60,000. $20,000 of this will be going directly to the purchase of an established café and the remaining $40,000 to a float, allowing us to immediately front emergency costs.

What we need now is two blokes to donate $30,000 each. Done. The project is launched.

Alternatively, taking all the loose change investments from the myriad of community minded, or just simply financially whimsical people will allow us to reach our goal.

Thank you for your time and investment. 

Sincerely, 
Leonie and crew