Profitability matters.
If a business isn’t profitable, it won’t survive, grow, or scale — no matter how beautiful the concept is.
At the same time, we refuse to chase profit at the expense of quality or guest experience.
So the real question for us has never been “Should we be profitable?”
It’s been: How do we build a profitable business without becoming something we don’t believe in?
This post is about how we think about that question.
We don’t optimize the wrong things first
Many hospitality businesses start by optimizing for:
- cheaper ingredients
- smaller portions
- faster shortcuts
- lower labor
We chose a different path.
In the early stages, we intentionally optimized for:
- product quality
- guest experience
- consistency
- trust
- long-term brand value
That choice made the business harder in the short term — but it gave us something much more valuable in the long term.
Centralized production is the key to scale
One of the biggest levers for future profitability is centralized production for our pastries.
We are already in the process of planning and creating a central production facility in South Naples — and we’ll write about it in detail later.
The idea is simple:
Instead of producing everything inside each café, which is very inefficient, we will:
- move bakery production to a central location
- maintain full quality control
- standardize processes
- scale production efficiently
This allows us to grow without sacrificing what makes our pastries special.
Buying ingredients the right way
Quality ingredients are expensive — especially when purchased in small volumes.
As we scale, we will:
- buy high-quality ingredients in bulk
- store them in our own warehouse
- control inventory centrally
- reduce per-unit costs
- maintain ingredient consistency across locations
This isn’t about downgrading quality.
It’s about buying smarter, not cheaper.
Building systems that actually work
Profitability doesn’t come from cutting corners.
It comes from systems.
We’re actively building:
- standardized recipes
- production forecasting
- waste control systems
- inventory tracking
- prep optimization
- scheduling logic based on real data
Every system reduces chaos.
Every reduction in chaos improves margins.
People efficiency — not people pressure
Labor is one of the biggest costs in hospitality — and also one of the most misunderstood.
We don’t believe in squeezing people.
We believe in making people effective.
That means:
- clearer roles
- better training
- smarter scheduling
- better tools
- better leadership
- fewer mistakes
- less burnout
Efficient teams are not overworked teams.
They are well-supported teams.
Pricing is a process — not a guess
We’re still actively working on pricing.
Our goal is to find prices that:
- reflect the quality we deliver
- align with guest expectations
- match real demand
- support sustainable growth
Pricing is not something you “set and forget.”
It’s an ongoing dialogue between the product and the market.
We’re listening carefully.
What else moves profitability without sacrificing quality
There are additional levers we believe in:
- menu engineering (highlighting high-performing items)
- portion consistency
- better throughput during peak hours
- smarter equipment utilization
- reducing rework and remakes
- minimizing waste without lowering standards
- improving guest flow and ordering clarity
None of these reduce quality.
All of them improve sustainability.
Why we think long-term
We’re not building Three Sixteen to win the first month.
We’re building it to still matter in 10, 15, 20 years.
That means:
- short-term inefficiency is acceptable
- learning is expected
- mistakes are tuition
- quality is non-negotiable
- trust is the real asset
We believe that profit follows clarity, consistency, and care — not shortcuts.
The bottom line
Profitability is not the enemy of quality.
Short-term thinking is.
Our approach is simple:
- protect the guest experience
- build strong systems
- scale intentionally
- optimize thoughtfully
- and never compromise the core
We’re playing the long game.
And our Wiggins Pass café is just the beginning.
