As Korea's small-business slowdown drags on, café transfer listings are flooding the resale market. Every one of these ads leads with the same pitch: monthly revenue of however many million won. What they never mention is the rent and labor costs draining out every month to produce that number, or the underlying structure that generates the revenue in the first place. This piece walks through the two core diligence checks for buying a café — reading a shop's true cost structure and verifying the mechanism behind its sales — step by step. By the end, you'll have a clear framework for how far to trust the numbers in a listing, and what you need to verify yourself.
What "High Monthly Revenue" Doesn't Tell You
High revenue almost always comes bundled with high rent and overhead. A location with heavy foot traffic commands expensive rent, and a shop that draws a lot of customers also burns through more in labor and ingredient costs. So there's no guarantee whatsoever that a café with big top-line sales is actually profitable. The trap is that buyers dazzled by the revenue figure either overlook this cost structure entirely, or pay key money — the upfront premium common in Korean commercial leases — without understanding why the sales happen in the first place. The shops bought this way are the ones most likely to fail. The real starting point for any café acquisition isn't the size of the revenue — it's training your eye on what's draining out of that revenue every single month, and how much.
Step 1: Verify the Cost Structure With Paperwork and Numbers
Start by reviewing the lease agreement yourself. You need to see the monthly rent and maintenance fees, how much time is left on the lease, and the terms for rent increases at renewal — only then can you put the advertised revenue next to the actual burden it carries. Next comes labor. You need to figure out how many staff, working how many hours, are producing the current revenue — and how much of that labor was actually the previous owner working unpaid. If the former owner ran the shop with family and no paid staff, but you plan to hire employees after taking over, the amount left over from the same revenue changes completely. Line up ingredient costs, fees, and utilities item by item next to the revenue figure, and the shop's real picture — the one the ad never showed you — starts to emerge.
Step 2: See With Your Own Eyes How That Revenue Is Actually Made
After costs comes the real identity of the revenue. The same monthly sales figure can come from completely different sources depending on the shop. Is it the location doing the work? Is it the previous owner's regulars and personal touch holding it up? Or is it inflated by nearby temporary demand or a promotional discount? The answer determines what happens to that revenue after you take over — and no paperwork will tell you. Before signing, sit in the shop yourself, across several days and different times of day. Watch who comes in, when, and what and how much they buy, and you'll be able to tell whether that revenue is attached to the shop or attached to the person. Revenue attached to a person disappears the moment ownership changes hands.
Step 3: Calculate Your Own Expected Operating Profit
Once you've checked all of the above, the last step is doing the math yourself. Taking over a shop is, in itself, simple — pay the key money, the deposit, and the fit-out costs, and it's done. But actually generating a profit from that shop is anything but simple. That's why, before signing, you need to work out your own numbers for expected investment, realistically achievable revenue, and projected operating profit after costs, and use those to judge whether the deal makes sense. The reason you need numbers you've verified yourself — not ones handed to you by a broker or the current owner — is simple: whatever the outcome of the investment, the responsibility falls entirely on you.
Final Checklist Before You Decide
Before you sign anything, check that you can answer all five of the following.
1. Have you confirmed rent, maintenance fees, remaining lease term, and renewal terms directly from the lease agreement?
2. Have you verified revenue using actual settlement records, not the language in the ad?
3. Have you visited the shop in person at different times and on different days of the week to observe customer flow?
4. Have you determined whether that revenue comes from the location, the previous owner personally, or a temporary factor?
5. Have you calculated expected investment, revenue, and operating profit yourself to assess whether the deal is sound?
If any of these is still unanswered, it isn't time to sign yet. Buying a café isn't buying a revenue number — it's taking on an entire cost and profit structure. Only someone who has actually verified that structure can pick a shop that's worth the key money.
