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The antidote to my fears has always been action. And it's time to let go of what we can't control and act on what we can🕺 I know how heavy it feels right now. 814 cafés closed in NSW last year, and so many owners are feeling the pressure, including me. But after 10 years running cafés and working with wholesale partners across the industry, I can tell you with confidence that profitable cafés in 2026 are not lucky. They're doing specific things that most owners haven't had the chance to learn yet. The biggest one is knowing your COGS. COGS is your Cost of Goods Sold. It's what you spend on the ingredients and packaging that make up what you sell. Most café owners have a rough idea. Very few track it proactively. And the gap between those two things is often $15,000 to $25,000 a year sitting on the table. Here's where to start this week: 1. Pull your last week of supplier invoices and total them up. 2. Divide that number by your total net revenue (not including GST) for the same period. That is your COGS percentage. Industry benchmark for food and coffee combined is 28 to 32%. It's 100% possible to do even better than that! Even a 1% improvement for an average cafe is $5k 💸 Then every week, get your team to open or close for you. Find 2 hours to fill in a COGS tracker, analyse what you find, and take action on it. Do it every week for a month. One week gives you a snapshot. Four weeks gives you a pattern you can actually act on. Comment COGS below and I'll send you the exact tracker we use across our four venues, with a video walkthrough so you can get started straight away. For all my coffee lovers, share this with a café owner you care about. A town without great cafés really is nowhere near as fun. Let's keep them open. 🤍