City Coffee Shop Wars
Open an independent café in a downtown where a national chain sits on every corner and the drive-throughs undercut you on price. Find the regulars the chains can't keep, or be one more café that closes in year two.
Downtown has 60,000 people a day passing through it and four places on every block already selling them coffee. The national chain has the app, the loyalty points and three stores within a five-minute walk of your door; the drive-through chain is cheaper; the bakery-café has the lunch trade. The decisions are about where not to fight: what to charge when a chain latte is $5.75, whether to go after office workers at 8am or the residents and students who stay all afternoon, how many baristas to schedule against a rush you only half own, and when a second site is ambition rather than vanity. It teaches the crowded-market lesson plainly: share is bought from someone who will defend it, spending to be noticed is expensive, and the winners are usually the ones who pick a segment the giants serve badly and serve it better.
$5.00 a seat · 3 simulated years, decided monthly · by SparkTower.