Share the history of coffee shop decoration, so that you can avoid detours.

At present, this small coffee shop, which is still in operation, has been going on for almost half a year. At that time, it was as small as a coffee spoon, as big as a bookcase and a commercial coffee machine. It was built from scratch. Of course, a large number of transformations in the business process also had the advice of partners. It was written before that if you want to open a small cafe, I can tell you this and briefly describe the feeling of opening a shop, but in fact, the shop is full of regrets and regrets in the decoration process. Most of the decisions in the initial stage of decoration are made without thinking or slightly hasty, and there are more regrets. Under the current economic conditions, we have no way to turn it into what we prefer, so I will give you a reference in this article. If you happen to design and decorate a small cafe yourself, I hope these suggestions will help. Of course, I am not a professional designer, and the experience in this article is what I think and feel.

First of all, the shop I run is a small cafe of about 40 square meters, mainly selling coffee and hand-made desserts, no western food, not big, not even a toilet. Due to the special location, there is no so-called rent-free period, so I found my father to do decoration friends for hard equipment, about a month, soft equipment also takes more than a month. But in order to save time, there is no systematic planning, and I do not have a better understanding of what I want the cafe to look like. If I have a chance to build another store, I think I will go to the extreme in every detail from beginning to end. Of course, I am still in love with this single-handed child.

(the cafes in the following pictures and texts are all personal preferences, no advertisements)

1. Determine the style

A city with a coffee shop has a soul, and every coffee shop is also a view of the city. Therefore, striving to create a view of the city and attract every passing guest is the basis that every coffee shop is looking for nowadays.

Before opening the shop, I went to fewer cafes and more often visited the ones I envied on Weibo, so I decided on the Japanese log style I wanted. However, after opening the shop, I came into contact with more exquisite cafes, but preferred the clean and simple Nordic style, which is now the style of many new stores. Before you open a shop, you are advised to go to more specialty cafes as far as you can, see their decoration, feel the feeling of each cafe, and determine what your favorite cafe looks like.

Nordic style looks better under the camera, simple and pure, and it is easier to take Instagram-style photos. For example, the Maotou Cafe in Xiamen has been renovated to CHAI CAFE, with white walls and floors, white coffee machines, cement bars, and various white cups, decorations, redesigned LOGO and stickers, all of which are carefully matched, so that they can be quickly promoted to a new Internet red store after the transformation.

There are also more retro styles, such as 23LabCafe, which is originally a botanical research institute, moving a large number of plants into cafes and sunrooms, as if into a small forest.

Of course, there are also the little fresh style that little girls like, the industrial style that young people like, Korean style, Japanese style, Zakka style, and so on. There is an old 10-story apartment in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, even with aging wires, but it has been transformed into a whole private cafe, with countless specialty cafes, each built by the owner himself, each with its own style.

Therefore, before opening a shop, know more about the cafes you like and the people around you may like, determine the appearance you want as soon as possible, and make clear the location of the store, so as to make it unified from LOGO, wall and floor color, material, coffee utensils and the bar, lighting, tables and chairs mentioned later, so as to avoid adding outdated objects and decorations to the store. For example, my shop just decided to be log style, but the old elm table I bought looks too thick and rough, and the log bar and door do not have the texture because of the color of spray paint, which is not as good as wood wax oil. Look at other store designs as much as possible to avoid making mistakes.

In addition to decoration, the uniqueness is also the icing on the cake. Chengdu has a cafe combined with laundries, and Wuzao, who focuses on independent magazines, has also sold coffee. There are more and more cafes in the city, how to be different and stand out is something that every coffee shop owner should seriously think about before opening a shop. If it can be combined with other elements across the border, it may achieve unexpected results. Nothing is unexpected, but it can't be done.

2. Facade building

The facade is like the business card of a store. the facade full of design and beauty will naturally welcome guests and attract a large number of people to stop to take pictures. the facade of the online celebrity store is the background for everyone to take pictures.

In the early stage, in order to save money, we saved a lot of things, which were done in accordance with the policy of saving, so the storefront did not make any major changes at the beginning of the decoration, but it also led to rework later. Of course, it is not for everyone to throw money into it, but according to the style and beauty of the shop, try to achieve better decoration results with less investment. For example, half a year after the opening, we spent more than 100 yuan to paint the original gray brick and glass door gray steel structure of the door white, and the aesthetic feeling was directly improved several degrees.

In addition, the facade can be used as a conspicuous signboard. Our sign is written in black and white, hanging high and small. Some people always see the glass house below and look up to see what kind of shop it is, and many guests say that there is a cafe here. Often, we want to hang a light box or sign outside to see if anyone accidentally misses it.

3. Suggestions from the bar

The bar is the most important area of the cafe, the design of the bar should not only be in line with the decoration style, rational use of the site, but also have a certain degree of practicality and beauty, it is better to have its own originality. A good bar can be designed in a variety of ways. According to my experience, there are only three functional suggestions.

First, if there is more space, it is recommended to design a wider and longer bar. With the arrival of the third wave of coffee, boutique hand-brewed coffee and siphon pot coffee are also favored by more and more young people. more and more people like to chat with baristas at the bar and take a look at the coffee-making process, while brewing coffee at the bar can better show the charm and professionalism of baristas.

If there is no special coffee culture display area, coffee utensils and coffee beans placed at the bar can also play a role.

Beijing has only 18 square meters of coffee, and its long bar is the biggest design highlight and the most important display area of the store.

Although my cafe is small and there are only two bar seats, it is still the most popular location in the store. Many guests chat with us here and become very good friends. We also look forward to having more bar seats, because there are always people standing up and chatting.

Second, although the cafe does not operate many varieties, but there are many raw materials and utensils, if you want to make desserts in the store, there are more baking utensils, so it is best to set up a special storage room for storing all kinds of raw materials, tools and boxes. If it is impossible to set up a special storage room like our shop, be sure to design more storage space in the bar, and you will need more things in the business process than you can imagine.

Third, the floor next to the bar pool is not recommended to use wood flooring, we have laid a reinforced floor in order to save trouble, but everything is washed in this area, always can not avoid water falling on the floor, for a long time, the floor here has been a bit bubbly, foot feeling and other areas are obviously different, afraid that one day the whole will be broken.

4. Lighting atmosphere

Lighting has an important function of creating an atmosphere in the store. Reasonable control of the irradiation range of the light and the brightness and color of the light source must be carefully considered before the transformation of hydropower. If you need special lighting on each table, be sure to set the position before decoration, especially the chandelier.

We did not draw any design drawings in the early stage, nor did we invite the designer's budget, so the lighting positions were arranged according to the imagined size of tables and chairs, but after buying the table, we found that the chandelier could not be located in the middle and upper part of the table, and it was not appropriate to play anywhere. In the end, we can only raise it or put the table away from the set position. In addition, please eliminate the original popular downlight, in the cafe outfield area, the downlight is really not good-looking, do not ask me why, all suffer from inexperience.

Every lamp is an ornament in the store, so don't be afraid to be dazzled when choosing, be sure to choose the lamps and lanterns that are most in line with the store style, and buy every thing that is most timely as carefully as decorating your own home. Bar as the most important area of the store, lighting and lighting modeling is particularly important. Because I am in a hurry and greedy for bargains, I have always regretted buying bulky lamps that do not look good now, but because it is another expense if I want to change it, I will use it.

Remember, every expense of the store has to be spent on the edge.

5. Setup and purchase of tables and chairs

Table and chair is the most direct contact of every guest, according to the decoration style to consider the color and material of the table, whether it is oak or particleboard film, black or white, log color, marble and so on. At the same time, determine the size according to the location and the audience of the people around you.

Because our shop is located near the school, there are many students studying by themselves, often with computers and books piled on a table. The big wooden table we set up is very favored by them, but the disadvantage is that when there are more people, it will soon be full. And often there is only one person at a table for four, and many guests are unwilling to share the table, and the turning rate is not high. In fact, with regard to table sharing and not caring about the size of the table, I personally prefer the concept of foreigners, who do not care about sitting on the same table with strangers, and they also have more opportunities to meet and talk with strangers. They can also have seven or eight people huddled on a small table to chat. Such guests are very popular with our operators. After all, the space is limited, the shopkeeper makes a meagre profit, and it is convenient to be convenient to others.

Of course, there are cafes mainly for leisure, photography and relaxation, with small round tables and three or four seats, which also have their advantages.

If it is not a commercial cafe that needs to greatly improve the overturning rate, but a small shop like ours, please be sure to set up sofa seats because of previous funding problems, we did not set up sofas, although existing seats have cushions, but there are still countless waves of customers who do not want to sit down in the store and enjoy a cup of coffee because of this problem.

Please also try not to set up high tables and chairs. In the early stage, we set up two high 90cm tables and 75cm high stools, and few people would sit there, so we had to replace them with low tables.

A large table can be set up in the store to accommodate 6 to 10 people, and there is always a need for meetings, board games, friends' gatherings and so on. It would be better if you could set up a projection device in this area.

Go to other cafes more often, or go to the imported home store to experience it. If not for the purpose of letting guests leave as soon as possible, the comfort of seats is also very important. Although we can't afford to buy imported home furnishings by building a coffee shop, there are many similar and well-rated products on some treasure.

Seattle, General Dolphin Cafe, Tuyuan Network

6. Buy every item with your heart

Cafes also try to be the same as at home, do not buy useless things. Each addition is either in line with the overall style, or has a certain sense of beauty and practicality, including coffee cups, water cups, coffee spoons and other small things.

More and more guests like to take pictures in cafes. Every product we produce is not only important in taste, but also important in appearance. Everyone is an appearance association, drinks served in front of guests, its appearance to a certain extent determines whether you have an appetite, whether it can arouse the desire to take pictures of souvenirs. More and more online celebrity coffee shops, not only because the coffee is delicious, but also because they are suitable for taking pictures, whether in the store environment or products.

If the product is to look good, cups and saucers are particularly important. In the early stage, all the small things should be carefully selected, such as coffee cups with a variety of materials, enamel cups, ceramic cups, rough ceramic cups, and various colors. Cappuccinos produced by more and more professional coffee shops choose glasses. You can better see the stratification effect. Japanese and forest style shops choose enamel cups and rough ceramic cups, no matter which kind of cup and spoon, appearance is very important.

7. Try to be soundproof

Because our shop is small, the floor is high and the seating is tight, so the sound insulation effect in the room is poor, and there is a little echo in one room, so often the guests who need to speak are afraid of disturbing the students who are studying next to them. The high-rise cafe has an open space, which does not bring a sense of depression and avoids the embarrassment that guests can hear clearly at that table. If the sound insulation effect in the store is not good, it is recommended to set a reasonable partition in the middle of the location, or set up wall sound-absorbing materials in the room to provide customers with a good privacy experience.

In fact, the most important experience is to do a good job of planning and design, do not change it temporarily, do not like this look later, and find another style good-looking for a while, and once it is decided, follow it.

For our store, although full of regret, but there are still many guests like it, some people say it brought him the same feeling as the late-night canteen, this evaluation of course elevated us, but also gave us relief and encouragement.

Of course, in addition to the pre-decoration, the late business process of product and service quality, as well as pay attention to every detail and customer experience, are very important.

I wish you all to build a happy and crowded coffee shop.