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Coffee Shop Setup: Designs, Layouts, & Equipment Lists

Revel Systems | May 13, 2021 |

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Coffee Shop Setup: Designs, Layouts, & Equipment Lists

Creating the Perfect Coffee Shop: Design Ideas & Equipment Needs

You’ve learned how to brew the best cup of joe, found a cozy spot with great foot traffic, and crafted the perfect shop name. Now you just need to put your coffee shop together. While your new twist on the classic coffee shop motif may help you draw a crowd, you still have to cover a lot of groundwork before the grand opening. 

You may have coffee shop design ideas to mull over and a slew of equipment needed. Coffee shop management requires careful consideration, and if you choose this undertaking, you’ll have a lot of items to address.

Whether you’re looking for coffee shop design ideas or a list of the equipment needed, coffee shop planning is made simple with this handy guide.

Coffee Shop Design Ideas

Drawing in customers is the name of the game. While word-of-mouth reviews about your coffee can initially pull in clients, an inviting atmosphere will keep them in the store. This is why small coffee shop designs need to be considered, as your design will determine how your business’s brand is viewed.

A cafe layout design can be broken down into core concepts of branding. Branding is more than just the visual appeal of your business, services, and products. It’s effectively how your company makes your customers feel. Your artistic choices can influence this feeling, but at the end of the day, your customers are looking to be part of your story. 

For example, if someone recreated ”Central Perk” from the TV show Friends, your audience would automatically have a connection to your business (because the brand design already exists in pop culture). However, you aren’t limited to recreating popular TV coffee shops; once you create your unique brand, your customers will return as they form a relationship with your shop.

Your designs should convey the personality that you want to embody in your coffee shop. If you’re catering to local corporate businesses, you may want your shop to have a minimalist aesthetic.  Stainless steel, sleek lines, and an open floor plan will let your customers know that they’re guaranteed premium service.  Conversely, if you want a quaint hideaway with a nostalgic touch, you can deck out your space with exposed brick, local art, plants, natural lighting, and warm wood tones. This cozy design will draw in a different crowd, but if it aligns with your business’s vision, then it might be the best choice. 

Coffee Shop Layout Ideas

The size and type of space you secure for your venture will greatly influence your coffee shop’s design. If you find a vast place with a lot of square footage, it might seem like a dream come true. However, when you furnish your shop, you’ll have a big job on your hands., And, during the slow periods of the day, your cafe may look empty. On the other hand, a small place quickly becomes cramped as customers struggle to look for a place to sit. When you’re designing your coffee shop, you may have to formulate some creative floor plan ideas.  The good news: you can tailor your business to fit whatever space you have. Choose the right type of coffee shop layout, and you can turn a disastrous endeavor into a successful enterprise.  

Here are a few suggestions to get the ball rolling. Depending on your target demographic, you might consider a:

  • Student Cafe: This type of coffee shop is perfect if you’re situated near a university and can offer a respite from students’ daily studies. If you have a large space, you can fill it with long tables, allowing ample room for laptops and workstations.
  • Take-Away Cafe: If you don’t have room for ample seating, you can still open a successful coffee shop. With a take-away coffee shop setup, you can turn even the smallest alleyway shop into a profitable grab-and-go enterprise.
  • Sidewalk Cafe:  Does your location offer great opportunities for people-watching? Excellent! Design the indoor space to accommodate counter service, and then set up tables and chairs on the sidewalk for your customers to take in the scenery around them.

This isn’t an exhaustive list of coffee shop designs, but you can take these ideas and put your unique spin on them. You can easily convert a student cafe into a co-working space, or dress up a sidewalk cafe to have a Parisian twist. As long as you have the equipment needed, coffee shop designs serve as the catalyst for making your customers feel at home in your space.

Starting a Coffee Shop: Equipment Needs

While having the right design and business plan is necessary, it’s all for naught if you don’t have the equipment needed. Coffee shop equipment is vital if you want to do what you do best—make coffee— and provide quality customer service.

Before you open the doors to your coffee shop, you’ll at least need the following items:

  • An espresso machine
  • Espresso and standard coffee grinders
  • Two standard coffee brewers
  • A blender for frappes and smoothies
  • A hot water dispenser
  • A refrigerator
  • A cleaning station
  • A point of sale (POS) platform

Depending on your menu, you may find other equipment necessary to open your shop. For example, if you plan on serving hot food, you will need the proper equipment to make it. However, this list should be used as a starting point for your coffee shop adventure.

Revel Systems Can Power Your Coffee Shop

Having the right equipment can be the difference between a profitable shop that has repeat customers and one that might need another injection of funding in six months. Thankfully, you don’t need to search hard for the perfect point of sale equipment and business management platform. Revel Systems has developed the ideal solutions for organizing and maintaining any enterprise. Contact us today and request your free demo!