Designing a Café Layout - practical tips you can't miss!

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Layout for a Café

So here we are, all set with our groundwork (we've defined our customer journey, cracked our bubble diagrams). Now, it's time to actually design that layout.

The essentials of designing a layout remain universal. The space-building principles that we address here can be applied to a multitude of spaces. 

However, we shall talk about Café Layouts in specific and address design elements that are specific to a food & beverage service.

Front of the House (FOH) requires plumbing and electrical points to be planned well. In case of a coffee machine, the area may also require to be elevated to accommodate RO supply and water drainage.

Get those 'rocks' in first!

Remember that anecdote about a jar and rock, pebbles and sand, and how a teacher demonstrates how balance and priorities in life may be achieved?

That jar is a great metaphor for our layout too.

Here are our rocks that need to go in first.

1. The BOH (Back of the House a.k.a. the main kitchen, utility, a.k.a. the functions to be performed behind a customer's back)

2. The FOH (Front of the House a.k.a. the parts of the kitchen/servery or even a bar, that are visible to the customer). Don't forget to position this main counter to accommodate a 'delivery window' for app-based online orders.

3. Toilets for customers and/or staff.

Placing these first solves for 2 scenarios. a) The BOH can vary from 20% to 50% of the total area of a restaurant or café, thus end up being the largest spatial element. b) All these 'rocks' listed above need a lot of plumbing, electrical and ventilation planning. Placing them where these services can most suitably be leveraged can potentially reduce a lot of planning hiccups.

Now come the pebbles...

...a.k.a. Community and large group seating zones - the spatial elements next in size.

If your format requires a buffet counter for a meal service, this is a good time to position that as well. 

Community or large seating zones should be flexible enough to accommodate small as well as large groups, as the need may be.

Similarly, for the outdoor seating, the large seating zones or pergolas ought to be defined as a first step towards defining the outdoor layout.

Finally, the sand.

Now is when you add the 4-seaters and the 2-seaters, and if applicable, the bar-style seating. 

The 4 seater tables enable versatile seating configurations, and spreading them out across the café lends a much-needed flexibility to the layout.

Placing 2-seater tables in the quiet areas of the café affords calm and private experiences to solo customers, freelancers, 1:1 meetings or dates.

As we add the finishing touches to the café layout, imagine yourself walking through the café like a customer - is the counter visible, how easy is it to find a cosy place to sit, where would the restroom sign be, for the toilets to eb easily discoverable?

Finally, balance the layout visually. An efficient layout comes across, rather deceptively, as simple and intuitive. It helps to iterate till one achieves this 'simplicity'.

Here's to smooth circulation, quiet corners and chirpy friend groups!

Until next time, when I am back with what makes store layouts awesome!

At RETALE Design Solutions , we create offline brand experience for retail and hospitality in India and the Middle East. Drop us a word if you'd like a chat on how to take your d2c brand offline.