Recently I was in a small coffee/sandwich shop for early morning coffee and while waiting watched one of the employees taking cookies from a pan and putting into paper sleeves. A bit later when I returned for a refill (and was more awake) I asked how many cookies they made a day. They had three different varieties they sold and they made a total of 160 every day – and sold every of them at $1.25 each.

I’m guessing production cost at $0.25, meaning a profit of $160/day probably 5 days a week. Is that a lot, or not?

Assuming my guestimate is close, that’s about $800/week in profit. I suspect that is close to real profit too. They already had to incur the costs of a store front, oven, and a couple people for the morning shift, so I suspect cookie making is something they can do to fill in the time during that first shift with not much incremental cost beyond ingredients and cookie envelopes. That’s the part I like. It’s taking the skills and equipment they have and producing something else that would appeal to their customers – 160 times a day!

I wish I had asked if they thought (or knew) if there was more demand than 160, or if that just worked out to be a nice round number.

To answer my own question, $160 day in additional profit seems like a pretty good deal to me.