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$1.50 for a coffee? The viral street ‘cafe’ run by a homeless man (www.rnz.co.nz)

submitted 8 months ago by Dave to c/newzealand

10 comments fedilink hide all child comments

For a dollar and some change, Patchy makes paper cup orders out of a supermarket trolley using instant coffee, boiled water stored in a Thermos, white sugar, and blue cap milk.

Pay $2, and Patchy will throw in two biscuits for your troubles - a stark difference in price compared to the cafés sitting above him in Commercial Bay, where you're more likely to purchase a coffee and cookie for $10 and above.

Patchy was told on Thursday morning by Auckland Council he will need a permit to continue operating his wallet-friendly business.

Luckily, sudden TikTok fame and his can-do attitude has won him over a group of supportive fans - some of whom have even set up a Givealittle page to help him pay for the permit and the tools needed to make his business official.

all 11 comments

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[+] downpunxx@fedia.io 20 points 8 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] Dave 15 points 8 months ago

It might if he's able to keep selling dirt cheap instant coffee, but I'm not sure if that's a market segment with a lot of promise. Plenty of people manage to run a coffee cart single handed, so perhaps it becomes a story of a homeless guy becoming a homed guy just scraping by.

[–] KevonLooney@lemm.ee 13 points 8 months ago (2 children)

You can get a similar cup of coffee for that price in NYC right now. They just brew it all at once and dispense it throughout the morning at various carts around the city.

Yes, they're regulated but they're not expensive. The key is they have a steady stream of customers and coffee is actually really cheap to make. It's maybe 50¢ per cup if you use special beans. Make cold brew with some regular cheap beans? It's almost free.

[–] Dave 13 points 8 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

In NZ if you order a coffee, it's going to be espresso unless explicitly stated otherwise. That means you don't just need the coffee, you need to make it on the spot and not brew it hours before. Plus you need someone with a bit of skill to make it.

He's selling instant coffee*, but I doubt he could continue that if he started a coffee cart. In NZ, it's literally the law that your employer has to provide coffee, and it's almost always instant coffee (I've worked places with fancier coffee machines, but they also have instant available). So if he's hoping to sell to people on the way to a place that gives it out for free, and run it as a fully fledged business, I think that may not happen.

We are probably over-analysing the story though, it's just this guys 15 minutes of fame.

* I have no idea if people outside NZ know what instant coffee is, because I know that NZ was one of the first and only places in the world that it got popular. Basically it's a powder you mix with hot water and now you have something that tastes sort of like coffee (like how drip coffee and espresso taste quite different but are also both definitely coffee, instant coffee has it's own unique flavour but is also definitely coffee. The flavour is not normally considered "good", but it's pretty familiar to people in NZ so also not inherently "bad").

[–] mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

haha I remember instant coffees like SANKA here in the states. Tasted just like the coffee powder we'd get in MREs in the military. It's... brown. and caffinated.

That's about what it's got going for it.

[–] HappycamperNZ@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago

Yeah, but if you're cold and wet its fucking amazing

[–] liv 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

American coffee culture is very different from NZ.

Starbucks had to close most of its franchises in NZ and Australia because espresso, lattes etc are already the norm here.

Percolated coffee is only really in very working class places like factory cafetarias.

[–] KevonLooney@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Are you saying that the average person has an espresso machine in their house? Because it matters what you use at home to make coffee. That the actual "coffee culture". You're not different because one company failed to expand internationally.

[–] liv 1 points 7 months ago

Surely "actual coffee culture" is how/where people drink coffee.

But yes, middle-class people are quite likely to own espresso machines at home.

I mentioned the Starbucks thing because it was a kind of famous case in business studies. It had expanded into other markets with no problem. You're sounding kind of angry with me about it?

[–] NounsAndWords@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago

This is like half the plot of that Seth Rogan movie with the pickles.

[–] deadbeef79000 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

This guy deserves accolade for his entrepreneurship.

However, he's run into the regulations for selling food and operating commercially on the city streets. Both of which require permits etc.

These regulations are important (imagine what Starbucks would do if there were no regulations), and unfortunately he's unlikely to be able to comply with them.