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Design

After you have determined what you will be serving, the to serve ready to serve sandwiches and salads, along with a selec-
space you will be leasing, and what each employee will be respon- tion of bottled beverages, an open-front, reach-in merchandising
sible for, you will then be ready to begin your design process. I refrigerator should be considered. Serving ice cream or gelato? If
usually start my design work from the back door of the space and the answer is yes, then an ice cream dipping cabinet will be neces-
work my way forward. You'll need to design in all of the features sary.
that will be necessary to satisfy your bureaucracies and facilitate
your menu, before you make plans for the customer seating area. Finally, when all the working areas of the bar have been
designed, the customer seating area can be laid out. This will, of
Your back door will most likely have to serve as an emer- course, include your cafe tables and chairs, couches, and perhaps a
gency fire exit, so you'll need a hallway connecting it with your window or stand-up bar with bar stools. Impulse-buy and retail mer-
dining room. Locating your restrooms off of this hallway would chandise shelves should be established, and a condiment bar should
make good sense. And, because delivery of products will also be located close to where customers will pick-up their beverages.
probably occur through your back door, having access to your
back of the house storage area would also be convenient. A quick word, living room type furniture takes up a lot of
space. If you plan to be opening evenings, and will serve beer and
wine, having comfortable seating will be important for creating a
relaxing ambiance, then by all means do it. But if you have limited
seating space, then stick with cafe tables and chairs. The more
people you can seat, the greater your income potential! Features
from the front door to the condiment bar should be arranged
in a logical, sequential order. As your customers enter the front
door, their travel path should take them past your impulse-buy
merchandise display and the pastry case, before they arrive at the
point of order. Exposing customers to your impulse items and
pastries will greatly increase their sales. Then, after the order and
payment has been taken, they should proceed down-line away
from the cash register to pick-up their beverage, and finally, the
condiment bar should be located beyond that point. Be sure to
separate your point of order from the point of product pick-up by
In the back of the house, you will need to include a water at least six feet, otherwise customers waiting for their beverage
purification system, dry storage area, back-up refrigerator and may begin to intrude into the space of those ordering.
freezer storage, ice maker, an office, 3-compartment ware wash-
ing sink, rack for washed wares, mop bucket sink, and a hand
washing sink. If doing baking, gelato making, full cooking, or
coffee roasting, all the equipment necessary for those functions
will also need to be added.

After all the features have been designed into the back
of the house, you will then be ready to start your design work on
the front of the house service and beverage preparation area. This
area will probably include a pastry case, cash register, drip cof-
fee brewer and grinder, espresso machine and grinders, a dipper
well, blenders, ice holding bin, blender rinse sink, hand washing
sink, under counter refrigeration (under espresso machine and
blenders), and a microwave.
Don't make the mistakes that many inexperienced
designers commonly make. They arrange these features in a
haphazard way, so that customers have to change direction, and
cut back through the line of awaiting customers to proceed to
their next destination in the service sequence. Or, wanting to
make their espresso machine a focal point to those entering the
store, they place it before the cashier. Customers inevitably end
up trying to order from the barista before they are informed that
they need to proceed to the cashier first. If this happens dozens
of times each day, confusion and slowed beverage production will
be the result.
Stay tune for the next part of Designing A Specialty
Coffee Shop in the next volume of Coffee T&I magazine.

If serving food beyond simple pastries and desserts, you Ed Arvidson has been a leading consultant to the Specialty
may need to add a panini toaster grill, a refrigerated sandwich/ Coffee Industry for over 20 years. His company, E&C Con-
salad preparation table, soup warmer, bread toaster, etc. If you plan sulting, can be found at www.coffeebizconsultant.com
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