New coffee shop in Mesa, AZ : Gauging nearby bitcoin interest.

[amencon]

Will be opening a coffee shop in Mesa, AZ on 7-25 (next thursday).  Well maybe calling it a shop is a bit generous, will just be an inline store in a mall food court.  Originally I was hoping to accept bitcoin for purchases at our opening, however dealing with everything associated with starting a new retail food business plus working 45-50hrs/wk has been exhausting enough.  I now plan to wait a few weeks or more and get my employees familiar with the current POS system before trying to implement another payment method.  A few things I was hoping to have a discussion about.

1. Local bitcoin interest.
I'm assuming that once implemented, bitcoin will account for a very small portion of our sales.  I have no idea how popular bitcoins are in the greater Phoenix area.  If your local let me know if you'd be interested in this (PM or reply here is fine).  If it looks like there are more than just a small handful of people that are looking for coffee for bitcoins here then I will possibly move this up the priority list and try to get it in place sooner rather than later.

2. Potential bitcoin meetup spot.
I believe as a lease holder I can reserve some small conference space periodically for free.  I'll have to look into it further as I'm not sure if there are restrictions on what you can use the space for or how big it is.  However it might be a decent location for a small bitcoin meetup group.  I personally have no time or interest in networking and setting this up, however if someone else in the area was interested I could work with them to reserve the space and provide free coffee and possibly pastries for their attendees.  PM me if this is something you'd like to pursue.

3. Revenue calculation and implementation for bitcoin acceptance.
Currently we have an iPad running the SalesVu app (square competitor) as my POS.  Part of my lease terms are to pay the mall a percentage over a set base sales figure.  I figure I'll most likely use BitPay and keep sales in BTC however I have no intention of essentially stealing from the mall by not calculating BTC purchases as part of my monthly revenue.  Over the next couple weeks I'll contact BitPay and verify they can provide me with monthly reports on USD value at time of sales for all BTC purchases but figure it would be nice to hear from others with a similar setup as mine and see how they are handling their BTC sales.

If/when we open and are accepting payment with bitcoins I'll create an announcement post with more specific information about the shop.  Thanks.

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[threeip]

I'm not in the Phoenix area but would love a place to spend BTC when I am.

You might find this service handy -> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=259925.0
I'm not vouching for it, but it looks like it might solve #3 above.
Let me know if you need some technical assistance with your monthly reporting, and best of luck with your new venture  

[amencon]

Looks like that would work perfectly, thanks man.  Don't really see any reason why I'd need BitPay then unless I was doing enough sales in BTC that I felt more comfortable converting a percentage to USD.

Hit me up if your going to be in the area and want some coffee.

[CompNsci]

Would you want to host the next Bitcoin meetup on August 7th at 7 PM?

We would need a space for perhaps 15 people and the ability to set up a screen and projector for some presentations.

cheers,
Peter

[amencon]

Would you want to host the next Bitcoin meetup on August 7th at 7 PM?

We would need a space for perhaps 15 people and the ability to set up a screen and projector for some presentations.

cheers,
Peter

I think that might work.  Let me contact mall management this week and I'll verify the details and send you a PM with my personal contact info.

Thanks.

[melon]

 I think bitpay has a mechanism to instantly convert or manually hold until youre ready to sell but may go directly to their wallet for holding and swept daily to your provided address.... but im not certain on details.. not experienced  in it yet but trying to configure their api keys to not be customer facing but back end as it causes the key to be viewable (not good)...maybe try a large qr at pos to scan... I havnt checked the link yet given above but is probably the best bet if you're not ready just wait and don't rush it.

[amencon]

I think bitpay has a mechanism to instantly convert or manually hold until youre ready to sell but may go directly to their wallet for holding and swept daily to your provided address.... but im not certain on details.. not experienced  in it yet but trying to configure their api keys to not be customer facing but back end as it causes the key to be viewable (not good)...maybe try a large qr at pos to scan... I havnt checked the link yet given above but is probably the best bet if you're not ready just wait and don't rush it.

Yeah was my thinking as well.  No reason to rush things, better to wait until I have a bit more time to do all the proper research.  Will be interesting to see how popular the option is but if it's just a few drinks a week or month like I expect it will be (for now at least) then I see no reason not to hold it as BTC since it will be such a small percentage of revenue and not much of a threat even with the exchange risk.  I'm sure plenty have faced this same situation so I have a feeling it wouldn't take too much forum searching to get some answers at least.