A childhood dream of having cakes and drinks in an environment surrounded by Peanuts comics characters came true when Elise Lau and her family opened their first Charlie Brown Cafe in 2005 in Mong Kok. But the road to success was long and full of obstacles for Ms Lau, who discovered that getting approval from the licence holder, United Feature Syndicate, involved endless rounds of negotiations, and tested her patience and perseverance.
'My family and I have always liked the characters in Peanuts comics, such as Snoopy and Charlie Brown, and we enjoy cake and coffee. [So we thought] it would be a good idea to merge both to create a restaurant with the cartoon characters as the prevailing theme,' said Ms Lau, executive director of Charlie Brown Cafe, which has five shops in Hong Kong and employs more than 60 staff.
With her brother's financial backing, Ms Lau found the licence owner's details and submitted a business proposal to United Feature Syndicate in the hope of a speedy and favourable outcome.
'The company was surprised to see our business proposal to open a cafe using the characters of Charlie Brown and his friends as the theme as no one had proposed anything similar,' Ms Lau said. The company had never done any business like this with any restaurant in the United States, let alone a company from Hong Kong that they hardly knew.
'It took us almost two years to show them our sincerity and determination, during which time we were requested to send piles of documents, including a business plan, food menus, graphic design specifications and even details of each shop location, to the licensing company for consideration,' she said. 'But the progress was very slow.' A breakthrough finally occurred when the US licensing company told Ms Lau to contact its Hong Kong agent.
'People in its Hong Kong office gave us a lot of advice on rewriting the business plan and helped us meet the requirements for the use of the cartoon characters,' Ms Lau said. A licence was finally granted, albeit with a lot of restrictions. 'You have to pay attention to the details of the characters,' she explained. 'You can't change the colours or styles of their clothes at your own will. Everything needs to be approved and has specifications. Even the way Charlie Brown smiles is prescribed.'
