Is there any money to be made with them? I'm looking for a career/lifestyle change ie I want to be my own boss.

Have any of you guys ever tried this?

 

Ive being to a cafe before only annoying they was there all dumb Terminals id have licked to have uploaded stuff

Si

 

can you make any profit from Ł1/hour? (sometimes less during off-peak)

 

Never used one in the UK. Ł1/hr the going rate? Seems a bit low.

How do existing IC's make it pay? Sell beer, coffee or something?

I'm also not thinking necessarily in the UK.

Anyone know of anywhere I can get some info?

[edited 'cos I forgot a bit]

[Edited by markr1963 - 8/13/2002 11:33:32 PM]

 

Depends I suppose...

Late PM for over an hour & was charged 2.5 Euro in 1 place but had to pay 6.50 euro upfront for 3 hrs in another, but you could re-visit & use up the time...

S of France. The 2nd place was switched on & bi-tri-lingual with new kit & had a second line retailing PC bits. The 1st was 10 PCs in a small space but in a busier town - no coffee!

 

There used to be a CyberPub in Nottingham - dunno if it is still there? Kill two birds with one stone that way

mb

 

MarkR,

Quite frankly - choose something else! I'm ex-head of IT for one of the largest chains of web cafes in the UK and they lost money hand over fist. I won't use this as an excuse to flame my old company much as they deserve it.

Here are some figures:
Top performing store with 30 PCs was turning over at its very best 9K to 10K a week. More typically stores were turning over 1K to 2K a week which barely covered rent, amenities and staff.

A few things to consider if you do go down this route:
- Location: You must have good exposure otherwise people will not see the store.
- Customers: 3 main sorts, gamers, students and tourists.
- Hardware: You will need fairly up to date kit for the gamers and you will need the best AV software you can find as just about anything bad on the net will end up on your PCs.

If you want any more information, please drop me a mail.

Rich

 

Rich, YHM

 

I know a guy that runs an internet cafe, and he makes a bit of _pocket_money_ out of it. He had a retail / shop fronted office and deided to put it to use.

Only reason he made any money was becaues he charged a quid an hour and he was practically open 24hrs.

His excuse was that because he was always in the office working it made no difference to him, paid for his car, paid the rent and paid for a couple of office girls.

Not something to make a living out of though.

 

Mark - YHM