Starting a coffee house... HELP!!!?

Planning on opening a coffee house in Florida...
Where can I find specific information on codes and laws governing Florida coffee establishments?
Do you have any advice for me as a new coffee shop owner?
Any personal stories to help me out!!
Thank you sooooooo much!!!!
Additional Details
thank you for letting me in on the weather in my home state but this is the business I have decided to start...

Firstly, if you have no experience in the coffee shop business, I'd advise that you work in one for the next six months or so doing everything from bussing tables and washing dishes to waiting tables and cooking if they'll allow you back there and if you have the skills. This will give you some of the work experience that you'll need to understand and run a coffee shop profitably.

If this is your first business venture, I would strongly recommend that you talk to a business counselor before you do anything especially spend money. I'd call the local Florida office of SCORE (go to http://www.score.org and input your zip code to find the chapter nearest you), the advice is FREE.

Ask for someone who has a background in coffee shops or restaurants and they'll try their best to match you with the right counselor. The counselor at SCORE will most likely advise you to write a business plan which is very good advice because it will force you to dig out all of the start up details and the costs of starting a coffee shop and force you to also understand all of the aspects of this business including the customers you'll concentrate on (your market ) and how you'll get them to find out and want to come to your fabulous coffee shop.

The location of the coffee shop is important but doesn't make it successful. To prove that all you have to do is walk down a street in your town where there are several coffee shops all in a row and you'll find one or two that are empty while the others are very busy. It has to do with menu, ambiance, and your reputation at the beginning and over time.

You also have to have food handling licenses, the right zoning, the right city and county licenses and permits and you have to be skilled at negotiating with your landlord about who'll stand the cost of the build-out or the changes to the premises to make it ready for your look and feel.

You also have to worry about the normal business planning and management issues related to starting up any business.
Take a look and read some of the articles at:

http://www.ychange.com/small-business-consulting-articles.html
especially the ones about a business plan and starting a business. Also try their Blog and their Bulletin Board.
Hope this helped.

Coffee shops are always in. Don't listen to stuff about it being too hot in Florida. If you do it right, you can become the hotspot for people to meet.

i think all answers have merit coffee sells in any weather conditions, cosider where it is grown!!anyway u can serve iced coffee! besides people socialise at such establishments not just drink.Also u should serve other things.It takes a lot of 2or 3dollar transactions to take care of your rent and other costs and outgoings!! Also such businesses are very labor intensive so u need considerable staff. TO end ,bussiness plans may be helpful but location ,contrary to one persons answer,isVERY VERY IMPORTANT YOU NEED AS MUCH FOOT TRADE AND PASSING TRADEas possible!! otherwise it will be like having a new cinema with a great movie showing but NO BUMS OR ****** ON SEATS!!!!

The legal requirements for operating an establishment that sells food and non-alcoholic beverages are mostly municipal, not State. While every corporation that operates in a State must be incorporated in some State, most States do not require proprietorships to register at all, except for the purposes of their collecting sales taxes and paying income taxes. State tax laws are found at the state website (e.g., florida.gov). Local laws of the city or township and county in which you intend to operate may not be on any Web site at all. The easiest thing to do is look for a similar business operating in the same legal jurisdiction and ask the owner what he or she had to do to comply with the applicable laws. The next easiest, and not the cheapest, is to hire a corporate lawyer who practices in that jurisdiction and have him or her do the paperwork for you. Otherwise, you have to hunt up a library that has the applicable city and county law books and read them yourself. Most people who have not been to law school do not know how to make sense of the way books of law are written, by statute number, then with applicable cases following. If you do not already know the number of the statue or ordinance you have to comply with, you are in for a lot of work.

Good luck...

ynot's answer was great!

and this will amaze you but it is far less expensive
to take over a dormant coffee shop than to
start one.

and go no further without writing a biz plan!!!

coffee in florida? isn't too hot to drink coffee in florida? how about a smoothie or icecream shop instead.

I agree with the person above me. Coffee is a little hot for Florida. You should open a Baskin Robins style ice cream shop there. Just a suggestion though.

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