No. 06Coffee House & Tea Company LLC
Multi-Location Scale, 1 to 5
Coffee House & Tea Company opened its first location in Ponce, PR in 2016. Over the next 6 years, the business scaled to 5 locations across Puerto Rico with full P&L ownership and no outside capital.
I.
The problem
Growth without systems is unsustainable. As new locations opened, the absence of documented processes created quality inconsistencies, training failures, and inventory problems across sites.
II.
Goals
- 01
Build operational systems that could scale across multiple locations
- 02
Standardize hiring, onboarding, and training
- 03
Implement food safety and inventory SOPs
- 04
Maintain P&L discipline across all 5 locations
III.
Approach
- 1
Documented core operational procedures from scratch; no prior SOPs existed
- 2
Built hiring and onboarding playbooks used for every new hire across all locations
- 3
Created food safety documentation meeting health department requirements
- 4
Implemented inventory tracking system using Square POS data and Google Sheets
- 5
Trained location managers to own their P&L using standardized reporting tools
- 6
Scaled from 1 → 5 locations sequentially, testing and refining systems at each new site
IV.
Systems used
- Square
- POS, inventory management, sales reporting
- Google Sheets
- P&L tracking, inventory audits, custom reporting
- Custom SOPs
- Hiring, onboarding, training, food safety, inventory
V.
Results
1→5
Locations, 6-year build
- 1 → 5 locations scaled over 6 years with full P&L ownership
- Zero outside capital raised; organic growth only
- Operational SOPs adopted across all 5 locations
- Consistent health inspection compliance across all sites
Strategic takeaway
Scaling a physical business taught me more about operations than any MBA module. You can't automate your way out of broken processes. You have to document, train, and trust the system before you can step back.