If you are planning to open an espresso bar/coffee shop, then developing an effective store build and layout will be one of the most leading factors in positioning your firm for success.
Speed of assistance is principal to the profitability of a coffee business. An effective ergonomic store build will allow you to maximize your sales by serving as many customers as potential while peak firm periods. Even though your firm may be open 12 to 16 hours a day, in reality, 80% of your sales will probably occur while 20% of those hours. Coffee is primarily a morning beverage, so your busy times of day (those times when you are most likely to have a line of waiting customers), may be from 6:30Am to 8:30Am, and then again colse to lunchtime. If you have a poor store layout, that does not provide a logical and effective flow for customers and employees, then the speed of buyer assistance and product preparation will be impaired.
Door Bottom
Think of it like this; if someone pulls open the front door of your store, and they see 5 citizen are waiting in line to order, there's a good opportunity they'll come in, wait in line, and make a purchase. But, if they see that 20 citizen are waiting in line, there is a high probability that they may resolve that the wait will be too long, and they will naturally get coffee somewhere else. This is money that just escaped your cash register! And, if they come to your store multiple times, and oftentimes find a long line of waiting customers, they may resolve you are not a viable selection for coffee, and will probably never return. Poor build slows down the whole assistance process, resulting in a longer line of waiting customers, and lost sales. So in reality, your daily firm wage will be dependent upon how many customers you can serve while peak firm periods, and good store build will be principal to achieving that objective!
The financial impact of a poor store build can be significant. For the sake of this example, let's say the median buyer transaction for your coffee firm will be .75. If you have a line of waiting customers each morning in the middle of 7:00 Am and 8:30 Am, this means you have 90 minutes of crunch time, in which you must drive straight through as many customers as possible. If you can assistance a buyer every 45 seconds, you will serve 120 customers while this 90 minutes. But, if it takes you 1 small 15 seconds to assistance each customer, then you will only be able to serve 72 customers. 120 customers x .75 = 0.00 x 30 firm days per month = ,500. 72 customers x .75 = 0.00 x 30 firm days per month = ,100. This represents a difference of ,400 in sales per month (,800 per year), arrival from just 90-minutes of firm performance each day!
So how should you go about designing your coffee bar? First, understand that putting together a good build is like assembling a puzzle. You have to fit all the pieces in the allowable association to each other to end up with the desired picture. This may want some trial and error to get things right. I've designed hundreds of coffee bar over the past 15 years, and I can truthfully tell you from experience, it still regularly takes me a merge of attempts to produce an optimal design.
The build process begins by determining your menu and other desired store features. If you plan to do in-store baking, then obviously you'll need to comprise in your plan an oven, exhaust hood, sheet pan rack, a large prep table, and maybe a mixer. If you plan to have a hidden meeting room for large groups, then an extra 200 sq. Ft. Or more will need to be designed-in, in increasing to the quadrilateral footage you are already allocating for general buyer seating.
Your intended menu and other firm features should also drive decisions about the size of location you select. How many quadrilateral feet will be required to fit in all the principal equipment, fixtures, and other features, along with your desired seating capacity?
Typically, just the space required for the front of the house assistance area, (cash register, brewing & espresso equipment, pastry case, blenders, etc.), back of the house (storage, prep, dishwashing and office areas), and 2-Ada restrooms, will consume about 800 sq. Ft. If space for widespread food prep, baking, coffee roasting, or cooking will be required, this quadrilateral footage may increase to 1,000 to 1,200, or more. What ever is left over within your space after that, will come to be your seating area.
So, a typical 1,000 sq. Ft coffee bar, serving beverages and uncomplicated pastries only, will probably allow for the seating of 15 to 20 customers - max! increase that quadrilateral footage to 1,200 sq. Ft., and seating should increase to 30, or 35. If you plan to get ready sandwiches, salads, and some other food items on site, 1,400 to 1,600 sq. Ft. Should provide sufficient space to seat 35 to 50, respectively.
Next, you will have to resolve the tasks that will be performed by each employee position, so that the equipment and fixtures principal to accomplish those tasks can be placed in the accepted places.
Normally, your cashier will control the cash register, brew and serve drip coffee, and serve pastries and desserts. Your barista will make all your espresso-based beverages, tea, chai, hot chocolate, Italian sodas, as well as all the blender beverages. If you'll be preparation sandwiches, panini, wraps, salads, snacks and appetizers, or will be baking on-site, then a someone dedicated to food prep will be necessary. And, if you anticipate high volume, and will be serving in or on ceramics, a bus-person/dishwasher may be a necessity.
After you have carefully what you will be serving, the space you will be leasing, and what each employee will be responsible for, you will then be ready to begin your build process. I regularly start my build work from the back door of the space and work my way forward. You'll need to build in all of the features that will be principal to satisfy your bureaucracies and facilitate your menu, before you make plans for the buyer seating area.
Your back door will most likely have to serve as an crisis fire exit, so you'll need a hallway connecting it with your dining room. Locating your 2-Ada restrooms off of this hallway would make good sense. And, because delivery of products will also probably occur straight through your back door, having way to your back of the house warehouse area would also be convenient.
In the back of the house, at minimum, you will need to comprise a water heater, water purification system, dry warehouse area, back-up refrigerator and freezer storage, ice maker, an office, 3-compartment ware washing sink, rack for washed wares, mop pail sink, and a hand washing sink. Do any food prep, and the increasing of a food prep sink and prep table will be necessary. If doing baking, gelato making, full cooking, or coffee roasting, all the equipment principal 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 build work on the front of the house assistance and beverage preparation area. This area will probably comprise a pastry case, cash register(s), drip coffee brewer and grinder(s), espresso machine and grinders, a dipper well, maybe a granita machine, blenders, ice holding bin, blender rinse sink, hand washing sink, under counter refrigeration (under espresso machine and blenders), and a microwave oven.
If serving food beyond uncomplicated pastries and desserts, you may need to add a panini toaster grill, a refrigerated sandwich/salad preparation table, soup cooker/warmer, a bread toaster, etc. If you plan to serve pre made, ready to serve sandwiches, wraps, and salads, along with a selection of bottled beverages, an open-front, reach-in merchandising refrigerator should be considered. Serving ice cream or gelato? If the talk is yes, then an ice cream or gelato dipping cabinet will be principal along with an added dipper well.
Finally, when all the working areas of the bar have been designed, the buyer seating area can be laid out. This will, of course, comprise your cafe tables and chairs, couches and comfortable upholstered chairs, coffee tables, and maybe a window or stand-up bar with bar stools. Impulse-buy and sell merchandise shelves should be established, and a condiment bar should be placed close to where customers will pick-up their beverages.
A quick word about couches, large upholstered chairs, and coffee tables. Living room type furniture takes up a lot of space. If you plan to be opportunity evenings, and will maybe serve beer and wine, and having comfortable seating will be leading for creating a relaxing ambiance, then by all means do it. But if you have small seating space, and are not trying to encourage citizen to relax and stay for long periods of time, then stick with cafe tables and chairs. The more citizen you can seat, the greater your wage 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 tour path should take them past your impulse-buy merchandise display, and the pastry case, before they arrive at the point of order (where your cashier, cash register, and menu-board will be located). Exposing customers to your impulse items and pastries, before they order, will greatly increase their sales. Then, after the order and cost has been taken, they should march down-line away from the cash register to pick-up their beverage, and finally, the condiment bar should be placed beyond that point. Be sure to cut off your point of order from the point of product pick-up by at least six feet, otherwise customers waiting for their beverage may begin to intrude into the space of those ordering.
Don't make the mistakes that many fresh designers commonly make. They dispose these features in a haphazard way, so that customers have to change direction, and cut back straight through the line of awaiting customers to march to their next destination in the assistance sequence. Or, wanting to make their espresso machine a focal point to those entering the store, they place it before the cashier along the customer's path of travel. Customers inevitably end up trying to order from the barista before they are informed that they need to march to the cashier first. If this happens dozens of times each day, blurring and slowed beverage yield will be the result.
On the employee's side of the counter, work and product flow are even more important. Any unnecessary steps or wasted movements that succeed from a less than optimal build will slow down employee production. All products should flow seamlesly in one direction towards the greatest point of pick-up. For example, if preparation a particular item is a 3-step process, then placement of equipment should allow for the 3 steps to occur in order, in one linear direction, with the final step occurring closest to the point where customers will be served.
Equipment should be grouped together so that it is in the immediate presence of the employee(s) who will be using it. Beyond the actual equipment, empty spaces must be left on the counter top to store ingredients and small wares (tools) used in product preparation. Counter top space will also be needed where menu items will no ifs ands or buts be assembled. Think of the grouping of equipment for separate job functions as stations. Try to keep separate stations compact and in close working presence to each other, but make sure that there is sufficient space in the middle of each so that employee working-paths don't cross, which could lead to employee collisions.
Creating defined work stations will allow you to put multiple employees behind the counter when needed. When it is busy, you may need to have 2 cashiers, an additional one someone just bagging pastries and brewing coffee, 2 baristas behind the espresso machine, a maybe even a dedicated someone working the blenders. If you're preparation sandwiches and salads to order, then an additional one someone may need to be added to deal with that task. holding your stations in close presence to each other will allow one employee to no ifs ands or buts way all equipment while very slow periods of business, thus saving you principal labor dollars.
When you dispose equipment in association to each other, keep in mind that most citizen are right handed. Stepping to the right of the espresso machine to way the espresso polisher will feel more comfortable than having to move to the left. Likewise, place your ice warehouse bin to the right of your blenders, so when you scoop ice, you can hold the cup or blender pitcher in your left hand, and scoop with your right.
As you generate your store layout, the equipment you elect should fit your space and the needs of your foreseen, firm volume. A busy location will most likely want a dual or twin, air pot, drip coffee brewer (one that can brew 2 pots at the same time), as opposed to a particular brewer. If you anticipate selling a lot of blended and ice drinks, then an under counter ice maker, one that can only produce 100 pounds of ice or less per day, will not be sufficient. You should instead find a high-capacity ice maker (one that can make 400 or 500 lbs. Per day) in the back of the house, and vehicle ice to an ice holding bin up front. Plan to bring in frosty desserts and ice cream? Then a 1 door reach-in freezer in the back of he house will probably be inadequate for you warehouse needs, so you'll need to think a 2 or 3 door. I all the time recommend a 3-group espresso machine for any location that may generate 150 drinks per day or more. And, I can tell you from experience, you can never have too much dry or refrigerated warehouse space!
Make sure that any equipment you elect will be accepted with your local bureaucracy before your buy and take delivery of it. All equipment will typically need to be Nsf & Ul approved, or have a similar, acceptable, foreign certification equivalent. Your bureaucracy will most likely want to see constructor specification sheets on all equipment to verify this fact, before they'll approve your plans.
Ada (American's with Disabilities Act) compliance will also come into play when you are designing your coffee bar. In some areas of the country, this will only apply to those areas of your store that will be used by customers. However, other bureaucracies may want your whole store to be Ada compliant. Following are some of the basic requirements of compliance with the code:
• All hallways and isle ways must be 5 feet wide (minimum).
• All countertop working heights must be 34 inches high (instead of general 36 inch height).
• 18 inches of free wall space must be in case,granted on the strike-side of all doors (the side with the door knob).
• All hand-washing sinks must be Ada friendly.
• All bathrooms must be Ada compliant (5 foot space for wheelchair turnaround, handrails at toilet, accepted clearance colse to toilet and hand washing sink, etc.).
• No steps allowed, ramps are Ok with the allowable slope.
• If your space has multiple levels, then no feature may exist on a level where handicapped way has not been provided, if that same feature does not exist on a level where it will be accessible.
You can find the faultless regulations for Ada compliance at the following website:
http://www.access-board.gov/adaag/html/adaag.htm
Beyond the basic equipment Floor Plan, showing new partitions, cabinets, equipment, fixtures, and furnishings, you'll need to produce some added drawings to guide your contractors and satisfy the bureaucracies.
Electrical Plan
An electrical plan will be principal to show the location of all outlets needed to control equipment. Facts such as voltage, amperage, phase, hertz, extra instructions (like, "requires a dedicated circuit"), and the horizontal and vertical location of each outlet, should all be specified.
A small, basic coffee shop might get away with a 200 amp service, but typically 400 amps will be required if your equipment box will comprise items like an galvanic water heater, high-temperature dishwasher, or cooking equipment (ovens, panini grill, etc.).
In increasing to the electrical work required for your coffee business-specific equipment, you may need to adjust existing electrical for added or reconfigured lighting, Hvac, general-purpose convenience outlets, and covering signs. Also, have your electrician run any needed speaker wires, Tv/internet cables, and cash register remote receipt printer cables at the same time they are installing electrical wires. Finally, make sure your electrician makes provisions for lighted exit signs, and a battery-powered crisis evacuation lighting system, if needed.
Plumbing Plan
A plan showing all plumbing features will be necessary. At minimum, this should show stub-in locations for all needed water sources (hot & cold), drains, your water heater, water purifications system, grease interceptor (if required), bathroom fixtures, etc.
While a typical P-trap drain should be accepted for most fixtures and equipment, some will want an air-gap drain. An air gap drain does not go straight through the "S"-shaped twists of the P-trap. Instead, the drain line comes level down from the piece of equipment or fixture, and terminates 2 inches above the rim of a ceramics floor sink drain. This ceramics drain basin is regularly installed directly into the floor. The air gap in the middle of the drain line from your equipment or fixture, and the lowest of the basin, prevents any bacteria in the sewer pipe from migrating into the equipment or fixture. I drain the following pieces of equipment to a floor sink drain when creating a plumbing plan:
• espresso machine
• dipper wells
• ice maker
• ice holding bin
• food prep sink
• soft drink dispensing equipment
To save on the life of your water filtration system, only your espresso machine and coffee brewer should be supplied by with treated water. Coffee is 98% to 99% water, so good water capability is essential. Your ice maker should only want a uncomplicated particle filter on the incoming line (unless your water capability is terrible). There is no need to filter water that will be used for hand and dish washing, cleaning mops, flushing toilets, and washing floors!
Be aware that many bureaucracies are now requiring a grease interceptor on the drain line from your 3-compartment ware washing sinks and automated dishwasher. A grease interceptor is basically a box containing baffles that traps the grease before it can enter the communal sewer system.
Also understand that a typical sell space will not come equipped with a water heater with sufficient capacity to deal with your needs. Unless your space was previously some type of a food assistance operation, you will probably need to replace it with a larger one.
If cutting trenches in the floor will be principal to install ceramics floor sinks, a grease interceptor, and run drain lines, then establishing a few general purpose floor drains at this same time behind the counter, and in the back of the house, will prove useful. Floor drains will allow you to squeegee liquids away when spills occur, and when washing floors.
Finally, if you added some new walls while your remodel, you may need to have the fire sprinkler ideas for your space adjusted or reconfigured.
Cabinet Elevations
Drawing cabinet elevations, (the view you would have if you were standing in front of your cabinets), will be principal for your cabinet maker to understand all the features they will need to merge into your cabinet designs.
These elevations are not meant to be shop fabrication drawings for your cabinetmaker, but merely serve a reference, showing needed features and desired configuration. Where do you want drawers, and under counter warehouse space; and, where do you want cabinet doors on that under counter storage? Where should open space be left for the placement of under counter refrigeration and trashcans? Will cup dispensers be installed in the cabinet face under the counter top? These elevations will provide your cabinetmaker with a clear comprehension of all these features.
While your kitchen base cabinets at home are typically 24 inches deep, for industrial applications they should be 30 inches deep, and 33 inches if an under counter refrigerator is to be inserted. Also, when specifying the size of an open bay to adapt under counter refrigeration, be sure to allow a merge of inches more than the bodily dimensions of the equipment, so that it can be no ifs ands or buts inserted and removed for daily cleaning.
Dimensions Plan
You will need to generate a floor plan showing all the principal dimensions for new partitions, doors, cabinets, and fixtures. This will, of course, help make sure that everything ends up where it is suppose to be, and will be the right size.
A final concept about design; unless the space you will be designing is a clean vanilla shell (meaning, nothing currently exists in the space, except maybe one Ada restroom), you will have to make sure that all the features that you are considering keeping, will be accepted with your local bureaucracy. Many older buildings were not designed to gift codes. If the firm type remains the same (your space was busy by a food assistance preparation before you), then some times any non compliant features will be grandfathered-in, meaning you don't have to bring them up to current requirements. But don't count on this! You need to check with your bureaucracies to make sure. More and more I see bureaucracies requiring new firm owners to remodel, so that all features are compliant with codes. This means you may have to rip-out bathrooms and hallways, add fire sprinkler systems, and provide ramps where there are steps. Great you know all these things before you begin your store design!
I all the time tell my consulting clients, that if I produce a exquisite build and layout for them, they will never notice... Because everything will be exactly where you would expect it to be. Unfortunately, if you generate a less than optimal build for your coffee bar, you probably won't perceive it until you start working in it. Changing build mistakes or inadequacies after the fact, can be very expensive. Not correcting those mistakes may even cost you more in lost potential sales. For this reason, I strongly recommend using an experienced coffee firm space designer to generate your layout for you, or at very least, to describe the build you have created. Doing so will payoff with dividends.
How to construct and Layout a Coffee Shop Or Espresso Bar
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