The Host Took 22%: What Is Left on 32 Units at a motorway service area

Before the Table: What This Is

This note looks at ux for 32 units over 29 months at a motorway service area, written from the buyer's side of the table. The figures are modelled rather than measured: cup volumes, price per cup and cost lines follow stated assumptions, and the arithmetic is left visible so a reader can substitute their own numbers.

Assumptions, Stated Plainly

Cup volume is stated per unit per day. Revenue is cups x 30 days x units x price per cup, taken at 13.1. Cost is consumables, the site share, power and parts. Payback is equipment spend divided by steady monthly net. No figure here is a quotation.

The model keeps the ramp separate from the steady state: the early months carry a lower cup count, and the steady figure is the plateau the site settles into once regulars appear. A reader who expects a different ramp can replace it without disturbing anything else on the page.

The Rows Behind the Argument

The columns are shown separately because the argument is rarely about the total. It is about which line moves fastest when a site underperforms, and which lines were fixed before the first cup was sold.

Reading the Table

The best month in this model nets about 85482, the weakest about 57286. The gap is the site's own variability rather than a change in cost, and that gap is what a trial period exists to measure.

At the modelled plateau, payback lands at 13.8 months. Read it as a reading of these assumptions, not a forecast: halve the cup volume and the same placement reads very differently.

Consumables scale with sales, so they rarely surprise anyone. The site share and the route hours are the two lines that do surprise operators, because both are agreed before the first cup and neither moves when the site underperforms.

What the Numbers Say About the cup

The customer's experience is about eight seconds long: can I see it, does it take my payment, will the cup be there. Everything else about the machine is invisible to them.

Queues form for reasons that have nothing to do with drink quality - a slow payment step, an unclear price, a pickup slot at the wrong height.

Consistency is the product. The tenth cup tasting like the first is what turns a first-time buyer into a regular, and a capsule system buys that consistency cheaply.

The Second Question Buyers Ask

A cost model that stops at the invoice is a shopping list, not a plan. The lines that decide whether a placement earns are consumables, the site share, power, parts and the hours the restock route consumes.

The useful test is per cup, not per unit: everything divided by cups sold is the only number that survives contact with a slow month.

The List to Take to the Site

1. Time a full purchase from tap to cup at the busiest hour
2. Check the price and payment wording is readable at arm's length
3. Confirm the pickup slot height works for a seated customer
4. List consumables, site share, power, parts and route hours as separate lines
5. Convert the total to a per-cup figure before comparing suppliers
6. Confirm the trial period and the move-out term before delivery
7. Write the modelled cup volume into the plan and review it after month one

Running the Same Numbers on Your Site

Reproducing the ledger takes five measurements and one honest average:

1. Write down cups per day for seven days, including the slow ones
2. Read the price per cup and the consumable cost off two actual invoices, one month apart
3. Add the host share, the power bill and the spare-parts line as three rows
4. Divide equipment plus installation by the steady net and round outward, never inward
5. Repeat the calculation at half the cups; the difference between the two runs is the risk

The Venue Changes the Curve

Traffic arrives on a schedule in every venue, and the schedule differs. Four common shapes, and what each one moves first.

None of these patterns is better than another; they are different rhythms. A menu and a restock cadence that suit a shift-change site will look wrong at a clinic, and the reverse is also true.

If You Remember Only Three Things

The first thing to keep is the habit of arguing with numbers rather than with adjectives. Every payback claim decomposes into five inputs, and four of them are checkable before signing.

A written trial with a clear exit is cheaper than any survey. It measures the one thing a walkthrough cannot: what the site does on an ordinary Tuesday.

Third, agree the number you expect the site to do. Without it, every later discussion is about impressions; with it, the second month has something to measure against.

When This Stops Being True

Three inputs move the result more than anything else: cups per day below the modelled floor, a site share above the modelled band, and a restock route that cannot reach the machine inside the host's hours. Each is checkable before signing, and none requires a pilot.

Compare models, not headlines. Two payback figures built on different cup volumes are not a comparison; they are two advertisements.

Common questions

What matters most to first-time users?

Whether the payment method is one they have, whether the price is visible before they commit, and how long the cup takes.

How is consistency measured?

By the repeat rate rather than the first sale. A menu that tastes the same on a Tuesday morning and a Friday evening is what produces repeats.

What do the modelled numbers actually mean?

They are the arithmetic of stated assumptions, not measurements. Every input is listed in the assumptions section so a buyer can replace it with their own.

Why show six months instead of a full year?

Because the first six months contain the decision: the ramp, the plateau, and the first sign of which cost line moves when the site underperforms.

Related reading

• 4 Months to Break Even, and the Inputs That Would Break It
• 23% of the Till Went to the Host: an exhibition centre Ledger
• 16 Months In, Payback Is Still 22 Months Away
• Service at an exhibition centre, Written Down Instead of Guessed