Snacks account for nearly 71% of the income of library cafes, though lunch
adds a not at all negligible 20.83% of total revenue and breakfast chips in
with another 8.33%, according to The Survey of Library Cafes, ISBN 1-57440-
089-4, a new study published by Primary Research Group.
The study presents data from a survey of more than 40 academic and public
libraries. The libraries provide data about their library cafes and other
food service operations, such as vending machines. The 55-page report has
more than 100 tables of data exploring a broad range of issues related to
library cafes, such as their finances, impact on patron traffic, staffing
and maintenance. Data is broken out for academic and public libraries, and
by size of library, for easier benchmarking.
Some of the findings of the report are that:
• Salads in this era of health consciousness chipped in only a mean
of 4.5% of sales, more in the public than college libraries. All salad
sales came from the larger libraries, those with more than 600,000 annual
patrons.
• The average price of a cup of coffee in the library cafes was
$1.49, perhaps reflecting the Starbuck-ization of the library café. This
figure also takes into account those libraries that gave their coffee
away.
• More than 40% of the library cafes offered outdoor seating.
• Close to 65% of the libraries in the sample had vending machines,
with an average of only about three vending machines per library.
For more information about the report, go to www.primaryresearch.com
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