Design a Coffee Shop the Smart Way

Design a Coffee Shop Business

Design a Coffee Shop the Smart Way

Designing your coffee shop's look, feel, and layout will be an essential step when opening a coffee shop business. Your coffee shop design and layout will be a part of your business branding and have to fall into a particular style you want to achieve. Therefore, all elements of your coffee shop must play into the same concept and vision.

While every coffee shop's concept will be different, there are a few essential considerations you will want to review before you settle in on a design plan.

Your coffee shop design is the foundation of your customer's ultimate experience. Therefore, design, layout, and general aesthetics play a role in your customers' connection with your business.

Today, we are going to outline elements you should consider when designing your coffee shop.

Tips on Designing Your Coffee Shop

There is no right way to design your coffee shop layout. However, there may be plenty of wrong ways. Mistakes in design, planning, and remodeling, could cost you thousands of dollars in additional spending, delay your opening day, and dampen your momentum.

Let's review a few considerations before deciding on your layout plan below.

#1: Understanding Your Customer

The size and style of your coffee shop, your menu, and other services and products should aim to satisfy a specific market segment – specifically, your ideal customer.

Other specific considerations may be looking at your customers' age group, social interests, income level, and your customers' situation. For example, are your customers on the way to work? Are they looking for a relaxing place to have coffee or even wine after dinner? Perhaps they are young families who need a kid-friendly coffee shop during mid-mornings, or are they business owners who would like a quiet extension of their offices during lunch?

Additionally, what are your customers' needs? For example, is your average customer concerned about price, speed, convenience, diet, or anything else? Do they value quality and status over speed and discounted coffee?

While everything about your design, menu, and marketing will work to attract your specific market, you will need to determine just which customers you are drawing.

#2: Your Coffee Shop Vision

Before setting out to start a coffee shop, you may already have a vision for your coffee business. Your design will play – or should play – a role in affirming your vision.

Ultimately, the cornerstone of your vision is determining what kind of experience your customers will have. What type of ambiance would best fit your target customers? What will your customers do at your coffee shop: work, meet with friends, or visit other parents with kids? Each situation may require a different coffee shop design and layout.

Your coffee shop is more than your espresso machine and your coffee beans. It's a special place where people can gather. How would you like to present your coffee and other products to your customers? Do you need special equipment to showcase your products?

#3: Your Coffee Shop Menu

Your coffee and food menu may significantly impact the space you need and also your layout plans. If you plan on offering a full café menu, for example, you may have to invest in larger tables and other seating options.

Also, how will your customers order and pick up their food and beverages? Think about how they will approach your coffee bar, where they'll make an order, how they will leave – wait for a coffee to be handed over, or coffee will be brought to their table.

#4: Branding and Marketing Considerations

You want to design your coffee shop with your branding in mind. Using a variety of colors and furniture pieces, your styles should match or appear seamless. Your coffee brand generates an emotional connection with your customers. The layout and design of your space will affirm this connection with your customers. This may contribute to greater customer loyalty and spending.

When it comes to your marketing, the first impression matters. You want to create a coffee shop design that's welcoming to your customers and makes them return to your café.

When planning your coffee shop startup, you want to figure out the spaces in your coffee shop design used for sales and marketing. This may be larger menu boards, posters, shelving for your merchandising, pastry glass cases, or fridges with water, drinks, and other products you will serve.

#5: Coffee Shop Competition

While you may not wholly base your design and layout plans with your competition in mind, it would be best to understand what your target market already has.

While you may want to be different and provide a different experience than your competitors, you may also want to offer similar things. For example, if your space allows, you may want to have outdoor seating or wish to offer nightly live music like your competitors.

#6: Emphasize your Coffee Shop USP

What is going to make your coffee shop special?

In the business world, we refer to that unique “specialness” as your Unique Sales Proposition. (It is also referred to as your unique value proposition.)

Your USP is a fancy phrase for “what makes you special?”

Determine what is going to make your coffee shop unique. It could be your nitro coffee, slow brew bar, crepes, a roasting facility, food, or live music. Next, design your coffee shop to highlight that USP. For example, it could mean moving the crepes operation up-front, so your customers can see you make them or building a stage for your live music acts. Whatever your USP is, highlight and embed it into your ultimate coffee shop design.

#7: Regulations and Codes for Coffee Businesses

Every state and county will have its local regulations regarding the construction, design, and materials used. Therefore, before planning out your arrangement and layout details, review the codes, regulations, and covenants.

I cannot emphasize this more! Whether you are designing a coffee shop, building out a mobile coffee trailer, or setting up a drive-thru coffee stand – you must review your local regulations. If you are in a particular building, you may have covenant restrictions, building codes, historical building codes, or special zoning rules and laws. Explore them all!

For example, the size of the doorways, entrance position, number of bathrooms per occupancy, position of electrical outlets, and types of surface materials most likely all have a code.

My strong recommendation is that you hire consultants, architects, or contractors who are certified in your state or region and know the specific construction standards or “codes.” Additionally, never entirely depend on your hired contractors to know the local building codes. Instead, I recommend getting familiar with the regulations yourself. They are often available online.

#8: Americans with Disabilities Act

The ADA is a landmark law that protects people with disabilities. It is expansive and touches everything from public access to education, employment, and business.

The bottom line with the ADA: never discriminate against employees or customers who may have specific disabilities. The ADA also impacts the design of your coffee shop. It affects your parking availability, entrance, and exit codes, your bathroom design, among others. We recommend that you listen to our special one-on-one interview with ADA experts in our Complete Coffee Shop Startup Kit.

#9: Customer Traffic and Workflow

Imagine how your customers will first enter your coffee shop. Where will they order, and how will they exit? This may have to be determined after settling on a particular space or coffee shop location. From there, you can devise a plan to best control your customer traffic. Additionally, you want to design a coffee bar that allows you and your employees to work efficiently.

#10: Coffee Shop Ergonomics

You want to design a coffee bar that is efficient and does not exhaust your body. The placement of sinks, espresso machines, refrigerators, counter displays all has a role in ergonomics. Your design will either help you achieve better maneuverability or not. The ergonomic design you create means higher efficiency because your baristas will have fewer movements to achieve the best result. This means less waste that can save you hundreds of dollars in the long run.

Ergonomic design goes beyond your employees and baristas. Keep in mind that your customers will feel more comfortable and safe in a coffee shop design that focuses on convenience and style.

#11: Eco-friendly by Design

You may also want to design your coffee shop to be eco-friendly. Taking an eco-friendly path includes everything from energy efficiency, windows, and natural lights, to the materials you use. You may, for example, use solar power to supplement your gas or electricity, water-saving devices in the bathroom, and ensure proper insulation.

#12: Focus on your Coffee Shop Theme

Your indoor and outdoor coffee shop design should always have a cohesive theme. If you are a coffee roaster, for example, you may want to highlight your coffee roaster. On the other hand, if you serve ice cream or you have a kid-friendly coffee shop, you may want to design your interiors to be bright with kid-friendly furniture and surfaces that are easy to clean.

#13: Design for More Coffee Sales

If you have ever been to IKEA, you know that their whole design and layout ensure that you see everything – even if you don't want to. While this might be a pain for many customers, their design ultimately boosts sales. Likewise, you will want to design your coffee shop with sales in mind. Have significant display cases that promote your pastries, your muffins, donuts, or other items you have for sale.

Chain coffee stores have easy-to-grab water bottles, soda, juices, milk, granola, and many other products for customers to view as they stand in line.

Additionally, you may want to develop a bright, easy-to-reach coffee menu board that is easy to understand. 

#14: Your Backhouse Design

While much of the design and layout is focused on the “front of house” format, much of the magic often happens behind the counter. From making items from scratch to whipping up sandwiches, waffles, or coffee, you will want to design an efficient backhouse for you and your employees. Safety and efficiency should be the top level of concern. You will have to account for your equipment and appliances, storage, and workspace – and maybe an employee breakroom or office where the administration of your business occurs.

#15: Design for Safety

In today's retail coffee, we have to consider what the world and our very community went through during the last couple of years. How will the health and safety of our employees and customers impact our design? Additionally, how will we think differently about our overall space, seating capacity, airflow, window placement?

How will we process transactions with our coffee shop POS system? Will we offer online payments, contactless payments, or create permanent shields near our cash registers?

Your Coffee Shop Layout and Design

Additional Questions:

What type of coffee shop location would be best for my business?

To determine the “best location for your coffee shop,” you need to understand who your customer is. Once you know who you will be serving at your specific location, then you can build a vision, coffee shop concept, and coffee shop menu around your ideal customer in a particular location.

What can I do to prepare for my coffee shop design?

There are a few essential things to get started before designing your coffee shop. The first thing is to review the elements we've covered in this post. The second is to make sure you develop your vision and concept. Third, have an understanding of what type of experience you want to provide your customers. Fourth, visit your future competition and determine what they are doing right – and what you can do better. Next, start researching the building codes and regulations in your area. Finally – and before you get started with spending real money – write your coffee shop business plan.

Are You Ready To Get Started?

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Based in Seattle, Washington, USA, Coffee Shop Startups is dedicated to providing you with the most relevant information on how to start a coffee shop business successfully. Over the last 11 years, we've helped thousands of aspiring coffee business owners worldwide. We harness the experience, wisdom, and knowledge of many successful coffee shop owners to help you increase your chances of success and profits. We support business owners who want to start a coffee business by providing them with valuable information on starting their coffee business successfully.