Interior Design Ideas & Tricks to Make Your Coffee Shop Look Charming and Unique
Unlike restaurants, cafés and coffee shops are establishments people visit mostly because of the atmosphere itself. Anyone can make coffee at home, or take it to go, but not everyone has a nice interior in their homes, so coffee shops become the perfect place to meet with friends, or just relax alone.
It is essential for a successful café to have a unique and appealing design that will make it stand out from the crowd. Let's take a look at five useful tips that will help you in your interior design journey.
Plan your design based on your target customers
The first thing you as a coffee shop owner should take into account, is that the atmosphere should appeal to your target audience. Depending on where your venue is, there are certain crowds that will circulate in the area.
If your café is at a shopping mall, or near a college campus, most of your customers are going to be younger generations and students, so it would be smart for your design to be more universally appealing to younger people. If your shop is downtown, then you have a wider variety of designs and even themes you can choose from, like a retro jazz café, or even a horror themed café, also depending on what crowds you are looking to attract.
If you are near a corporate building, then you should research what kind of business they do, and make the atmosphere fresh and light, because your customers are more likely to pop in for a quick espresso, rather than spend hours dozing off in comfy chairs.
Cater for takeaway and dining-in
People love their coffee-to-go. Make sure you keep that fact in mind when setting up your own place. Consider the design you will choose. Whether your coffee shop will cater to takeaways or for a relaxed dining-in experience--it all depends on the crowd you want to attract. Business people love their coffee, but they don’t have the time to sit at a coffee shop for hours, so they would benefit from a coffee-to-go establishment.
On the other hand, younger people love spending their time as away from home as possible, and they usually like to find the comfiest nook, where they can spend hours finishing school projects while enjoying a cup. It would be best if you could offer both takeaways and dining-in, but if not, then think carefully about the customers.
Think about the layout
At the centre of your interior design, the layout of your café can make it or break it. Whether you will have a simple table-chair layout, or booths, all depends on the size of your venue and the customers. The safest option would be to combine different seating options, like booths on the sides, and chairs and tables in the middle, where you need more wiggle room. It is absolutely crucial for chairs to be comfortable.
So, be sure to take a page from Australians, whose 'coffee culture' is widely considered the most advanced in the world, and get high quality venue furniture like Bentwood chairs from Melbourne. You should always aim to find a balance between the aesthetic appeal of your coffee shop and its functionality. Mixing up the seating options will cater to more people, and make it possible to have more seats.
Mind the colour scheme
Colours stimulate the senses and affect our brain. Did you know that the colour yellow and red have been known to increase appetite? However, they also elevate our energy, so the combination is far from desirable for a relaxing café. You want your guests to feel comfortable and relaxed enough that they will want to enjoy their daily cup of Joe and appreciate the simple things in life.
It would be smart to include dark and relaxing colour schemes into your design, like various shades of wood, black, grey, beige and even green and white. However, if your coffee shop serves as a pitstop for business people that visit mostly during their breaks, then you should consider bright colours that will seem energising.
Choose the right light
Good lighting is what separates good interior design from brilliant interior design. Especially for dining-in establishments, good lighting is crucial in creating the right atmosphere. On top of that, people tend to share most of their daily life on social media, and you want the light in your place to be just right for taking pictures. That is why you should install various different sources of light, and use both artificial and natural light.
Plenty of natural light is great during the daytime, and it will reduce the cost of the electricity bill, make your coffee shop refreshing and spacious, and it is eco-friendly! When it comes to artificial lighting, you should include all three: accent lights to draw attention to certain focal points in your café, ambient lights that evenly distribute light and create softer shadows, and decorative lights that enhance the design of your coffee shop.
Over to you
The way you design the interior of your coffee shop can either make it or break it. Luckily, by paying attention to certain details, especially to your customers, your café has a bigger chance of being successful. Consider the advice we gave you, and pay attention to the colours and layout of your shop. The rest will all fall into place.
By Derek Lotts
