Robin Delany just opened fifth outlet — the fourth on North Shore
Brian Morton
Sun
Robin Delany gets down to business at his latest location in Lynn Valley. Photograph by : Glenn Baglo, Vancouver Sun
If you want to get your new retail business off to a great start, think hard about where to set up shop.
That’s the advice of businessman Robin Delany, who spends months — even years — scouting out and securing the perfect site of new Delany’s Coffee Houses, which now number five — one in downtown Vancouver and four on the North Shore.
“It’s fundamental,” Delany said in an interview. “It’s critical that you have a great, and not just a good, location. You have to pick the right side of the street, the sunny, ‘go-to-work’ side. And there should be complementary retailers beside you.
“I would always take six months on the site selection process. [In Lynn Valley] I worked with the landlord for two-and-a-half years to secure that site.”
Delany, who recently opened his newest coffee shop in Lynn Valley, keeps it all in the family. Wife Jennifer and sister Bitsy are co-owners of Delany’s and three of their children — Robin and Jennifer’s sons and Bitsy’s daughter — work at the coffee houses. Another son of Delany’s recently started up his own adventure recreation business in Whistler.
“It started out as a traditional small business, but it lent itself very nicely to involving the family,” added Delany. “That wasn’t the intention at the beginning. But my wife runs the financial end of it and she’s excellent at it.”
Delany, who had never owned a small business before, opened his first coffee shop on Denman Street in Vancouver‘s West End in 1993, when Starbucks was just getting off the ground in the city.
“I saw what they were doing and saw an opportunity to do it differently,” said Delany, who opened his first coffee shop with $250,000 obtained through refinancing the family home. “I have a retail background and I love great coffee. And I was downsized out of a job in 1992. It was the perfect opportunity to create what I always wanted to do.”
The business gradually expanded onto the North Shore and now has coffee shops in Edgemont Village, Park Royal, Dundarave and the newest one in Lynn Valley, which opened two months ago.
Delany said that, while it’s fine to have a great location with plenty of foot traffic, there are several factors that are critically important to running a successful business, especially in the highly competitive field of coffee shops. A cup of terrific Joe tops the list because it’s the coffee, after all, that draws them in.
“It’s a given that you have to have great coffee [and] I think our coffee is exceptional. And passion is also critical. I just love coffee.”
He said he puts in “60-plus” hours a week running his business. “You get consumed by it.”
Decor-wise, Delany said the coffee shops are also very “woody, authentic, with a non-corporate feel.”
Comfortable seating and great service help round out the package. “And we try to get to know our customers by their first name. We have lots of ‘Norms,’ he said, referring to one of the regular customers in Cheers, the pub-based TV comedy of the 1980s.
Delany said each coffee shop is involved in the local community. The Lynn Valley shop has a concert series, for example, while the Denman Street shop organizes fundraising activities for the area’s gay community. “In each community, we’re intimately involved in community activities.”
And the future? “We have no illusions of grandeur. Five locations is great for the time being. We’re not trying to be big. We’re trying to be great.”
Delany’s Coffee House
Year company founded: 1993
Start-up costs: $250,000
Number of coffee shops: five
Number of employees in 1993: 15
Number of employees in 2007: 125
Total number of clients in 1993: 110,000
Total number of clients in 2007: 1,450,000
Projected total number of clients in 2008: 1,600,000
© The Vancouver Sun 2008