Drive-though coffee stands can be incredible businesses to run. Customers love them for the quick service and hot coffee. Employees tend to like the job since they can focus on making coffee, and they don't have to clean or maintain a dining room. However, if you do run a drive-through coffee stand, you really need to focus on keeping traffic moving. If your service is too slow, profits will fall and customers will go elsewhere. So, here are some tips to help keep traffic moving at your drive-through coffee stand.

Buy good equipment.

When you own a drive-through coffee stand, you cannot afford to buy less than perfect equipment. First of all, high-end equipment tends to make coffee faster, so you can move customers through the line a lot faster. Also, high-end equipment is less likely to break or experience issues that your employees have to solve during the day. The best coffee makers will keep humming along and brewing, all day long, without incident. It's worth spending a bit more on equipment as it will increase your profits in the long run.

Keep drink prep to four steps.

Look over the coffee beverages you are serving, and determine how many steps each one requires. For example, a standard coffee would require three steps: brew the coffee, add the cream, and add the sugar. Try to keep all of your coffee drinks under four steps to make. If you have some drinks on the menu that require five or six steps, then you need to re-evaluate those options. See if you can combine two of the steps. For example, if a drink requires chocolate sauce and simple syrup, maybe you can pre-mix the chocolate sauce and simple syrup in a bottle so that adding this mixture just becomes one step. Keeping drinks to four steps, max, ensures your baristas don't get hung up on any one beverage for too long.

Limit your food options.

Your focus is coffee. Adding food to your menu will slow things down considerably, which will keep you from satisfying your purpose: serving coffee quickly. You don't really need to offer food at all, but if you do choose to offer food, keep your options very limited. Three kinds of donuts, for example, may be all you need. Or maybe you want to serve just blueberry and chocolate chip muffins. Customers will appreciate having something to eat, if needed, but they won't come to think of your stand as a food source.

With the tips above, you can keep traffic moving through your coffee stand. Good luck!

Contact coffee stands like Gravity Coffee Company for more ideas.