Coffee shops are often cozy, comfortable places where people go to study, get their caffeine fix, or to have meetings with others from out of town. Making your coffee shop unique and welcoming with clever coffee shop interior design tips is important so that customers want to come back over and over again to enjoy the atmosphere at your shop. The more unique your coffee shop décor is, the better, as this will help to make your shop stand out from the crowd.
This is particularly important if you want to add more stores to your business down the road, as you will probably want to carry over the theme from your first shop to the additional stores. There are many ways to create a theme for your coffee shop. You can use the ideas in this guide to help you to create the unique presentation that will make your shop stand out from the crowd with ease.
Clever Coffee Shop Interior Design Tips
There is a lot that you can do with your coffee shop, but you want to make sure that you choose the best ideas for the space. Some of the clever coffee shop interior design tips that you can use include:
1. Use Local Touches
A large proportion of your regular business will likely come from the local area around your store. This means that you need to be sure that your shop feels like home to the people who come to sit down and enjoy it. Adding paintings from local artists to the walls or using photographs and other art that is evocative of the area of your business can be a great way to theme your shop and make it more inviting.
You can also add local flair by theming your furniture and other décor notes around your location. If you live in a rainy place, you could think about adding some cozy couches near a portable fireplace, for example. There are all kinds of these little local touches that can make your coffee shop theme fit into its surroundings perfectly.
If you are stumped for ideas in the category of local décor and local theming, think about the places that you have visited for coffee or even a meal that are really memorable. What theming strategies did they use to connect their shop to the local community? Sometimes you just need to take a step back and imagine your shop from another person’s perspective to get new and fresh ideas.
2. Change Up the Lighting
The regular, basic lighting that likely was present when you moved into your coffee shop space might have to be the mainstay of your lighting for your store. However, you can add cozy touches like standing lamps or creative track lighting to certain areas of your store to help create an ambiance of comfort. Even changing the color of the light bulbs that are in use in certain areas of the shop can help to make it more inviting and comfortable for those who want to come in and hang out.
Many coffee shops employ these changes to the areas with couches or study tables, but you might want to change up the lighting throughout your shop. Just be sure when changing out the lights that you are not violating your contract with your landlord by making these changes or breaking any kind of requirement by law for your county or state.
3. Offer Different Kinds of Seating
The seating that you offer will make it possible for people to come to your shop and enjoy being there. If you only offer hard chairs and small tables, it might not be comfortable to sit and stay in your shop. You want people to feel at home when they come in to get some coffee and work or study. Make sure that you have the right seating to make that possible.
The best thing to do is to offer a variety of different seating types. You might want to have one area that consists of couches and cozy chairs and another that offers a larger table for people to come to sit down and work as a group. You can also create small study or work nooks that are well back from the busy parts of the store and which offer lots of outlets, some table space, and some comfortable chairs.
You will need to pay attention to the kinds of people who are coming into your shop the most often and be sure that you are catering to their needs. If they feel welcome and believe that they can sit down to enjoy a few hours in your shop, they will be likely to come back over and over again to visit you.
4. Add a Bookshelf
Bookshelves can be a great addition to any design plan. They offer a pop of color and interest, and sometimes the things that are on the shelves might convince a customer to sit down and do a little reading. You can offer books from local authors for sale in your store if you wish, and you might also want to have some local interest books on the shelf that talk about the history of the area or show pictures of the prettiest places in your state.
Bookshelves are one of those personalized and cozy touches that can make it easy for you to invite people to stay with you for a while. You can use a bookshelf to create a partial barrier between areas of the shop to help foster quiet study spaces or places where people might want to sit down and work. Being able to create some delineation in space in an organic way can be a big benefit to any coffee shop design plan.
If you feel really inspired, you can also make a lending library out of your bookshelf. This can be a great way to invite people to re-home the books that they are done reading and to create return visits from customers. You might lose some books here and there to the forgetful person who never comes back with them in hand, but books are meant for sharing.
5. Use Pillows and Other Small Touches
Adding some colorful and comfortable pillows to the chairs and sofas in your shop can be a great way to add personality in a useful way. Make sure that you also consider tying together the entire theme of your shop with these little splashes of color that have been added carefully throughout your store. It can be fun to accessorize with unique colors and with items that are not matched to each other, but you do need a theme of a few central colors to help tie things together.
Pillows and other kinds of comfort items on couches and chairs can make people feel right at home in ways they will not if the furniture is not comfortable. This is a touch of personality that your shop can benefit from immediately and which is not expensive to add to your overall decoration plans.
6. Add Some Board Games
Having some games in the shop can be a lot of fun and can help encourage people to stay and drink coffee for a while. If you have an area with a bookshelf or some other kind of convenient storage location, you can place these games in plain sight so that people are tempted to pick them up and start playing with them.
Things like Monopoly or Chess can be great choices for your coffee shop and can help people feel relaxed and comfortable enough to stay in your shop for a while. Remember that people who hang for longer are more likely to get food or a second drink, so adding board games is not only good for the ambiance of your shop, but it can also be a great way to ensure that your store is making more money.
For coffee shops that have access to an outdoor seating area, another option is lawn or yard games. You might have room for some cornhole or a ring toss game. Maybe you could even add a space for horseshoes! These kinds of classic games can make the experience of hanging out at your coffee shop more fun and interesting.
7. Chalkboards
Chalkboards are a coffee shop staple, but that does not mean that they are tired or boring. You can keep coffee shop chalkboards exciting and fun by having someone who is good at creating art with chalk come in and write up your menu or decorate the chalkboards. Specials and other kinds of menu items can be updated on these handy boards as well. This means that you can use the chalkboard medium to create visually-interesting notices to consumers that will help to sell specific menu items or promote certain kinds of drinks.
This is a great addition to your coffee shop if you do seasonal menu offerings as well. Advertising your Christmas coffee menu or your fall season specials is really easy when you have a chalkboard to handle this job for you. Chalkboards are also a really flexible design element because they can be put behind the counter, but they can also be used to decorate entire walls of your shop if you wish.
8. Upgrade Your Music
The music that you are playing in your store can make or break the ambiance. You might need to consider any upgrade to this part of your interior design so that people feel welcomed and comfortable enough to hang out for a while. You will need to be sure that you are using the right kind of music for the overall theme of your shop, and you must be aware of the volume level of certain kinds of music in the main area of your store.
Picking music that is too loud or selecting music that does not fit the theme of your shop can be discordant and unpleasant. Coffee shop music is actually considered a music genre, so you will probably want to start your search for new music with playlists of artists who offer this kind of music. There might also be room for your shop to offer live music from time to time, and you can explore this idea as well.
If you are going to offer live music, be certain that you look into the licensing and permits that are required to allow this kind of activity. In most counties and states, there are specific rules about this kind of entertainment, and you need to be compliant with these rules for the performance to be legal.
9. Mirrors
If you have a small shop that you need to make look bigger, a mirror is the best way to handle this need. Picking out the right mirrors can be key, so make sure that you know what size mirror you are looking for when you shop. The other factor that can impact mirror selection is the weight of the frame. If you don’t have a stud to hang a mirror on in specific areas of your shop, you should be careful to get a very lightweight mirror for this location.
Mirrors with interesting and comment-worthy frames can be a really ideal choice for this need. You can also go with a more industrial mirror wall that just covers an entire side of your shop space to add dimension and the impression of space inside the store.
10. Pick a Color Theme
You can choose to design all of your coffee shop décor around specific colors if you wish. This can help to make things more cohesive, and sometimes this can also provide guidance when you are not sure if you want to add a specific item to your décor plans or not. Make sure that you consider the kind of weather that you have most often in your area as you are choosing your color palette.
If it is very gloomy and dark most of the year where you have opened your shop, consider bright colors a fun way to liven up the interior of your shop. If you are near the beach, soft blues and pinks might be the perfect way to dress up your coffee shop. These colors can also be taken from your overall branding colors and just moved inside the shop itself. This is a great way to connect your brand elements with the experience of sitting down inside your coffee shop.
Your Coffee Shop Interior Has a Lot to Do With Its Success
If you have a coffee shop that you are operating and you want to make sure that it stands out from the crowd, the interior décor that you utilize can make all the difference. Being sure that you have the right décor in place can be a little challenging at first, but as you get used to upgrading and shifting through different décor options, it will get easier. Adding local art, upgrading your music, or putting a bookshelf in the middle of the shop can make a huge impact on the comfort of spending time there.
Coffee shops are meant to be enjoyed by patrons, so you will want to be sure that you have created the right kind of vibe that will make people want to hang out with you for hours.
The more creative your shop’s interior design is, the more likely it will be that you will enjoy access to return customers who come back over and over again. Take a look at these clever coffee shop interior design tips to help you get started.