If you are planning to open an espresso bar/coffee shop, then developing an effective store construct and layout will be one of the most important factors in positioning your company for success.
Speed of assistance is significant to the profitability of a coffee business. An effective ergonomic store construct will allow you to maximize your sales by serving as many customers as possible while peak company periods. Even though your company 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 nearby lunchtime. If you have a poor store layout, that does not furnish a logical and effective flow for customers and employees, then the speed of buyer assistance and goods preparation will be impaired.
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Think of it like this; if person pulls open the front door of your store, and they see 5 population are waiting in line to order, there's a good opening they'll come in, wait in line, and make a purchase. But, if they see that 20 population are waiting in line, there is a high probability that they may rule that the wait will be too long, and they will plainly get coffee somewhere else. This is money that just escaped your cash register! And, if they come to your store complicated times, and often find a long line of waiting customers, they may rule you are not a viable selection for coffee, and will probably never return. Poor construct slows down the whole assistance process, resulting in a longer line of waiting customers, and lost sales. So in reality, your daily company revenue will be dependent upon how many customers you can serve while peak company periods, and good store construct will be significant to achieving that objective!
The financial impact of a poor store construct can be significant. For the sake of this example, let's say the mean buyer transaction for your coffee company 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 petite 15 seconds to assistance each customer, then you will only be able to serve 72 customers. 120 customers x .75 = 0.00 x 30 company days per month = ,500. 72 customers x .75 = 0.00 x 30 company days per month = ,100. This represents a distinction of ,400 in sales per month (,800 per year), arrival from just 90-minutes of company performance each day!
So how should you go about designing your coffee bar? First, understand that putting together a good construct is like assembling a puzzle. You have to fit all the pieces in the permissible connection to each other to end up with the desired picture. This may require 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 usually takes me a merge of attempts to furnish an optimal design.
The construct 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 perhaps a mixer. If you plan to have a secret meeting room for large groups, then an extra 200 sq. Ft. Or more will need to be designed-in, in addition to the square footage you are already allocating for general buyer seating.
Your intended menu and other company features should also drive decisions about the size of location you select. How many square feet will be required to fit in all the significant 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 allembracing food prep, baking, coffee roasting, or cooking will be required, this square 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 straightforward pastries only, will probably allow for the seating of 15 to 20 customers - max! increase that square 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 furnish adequate space to seat 35 to 50, respectively.
Next, you will have to rule the tasks that will be performed by each employee position, so that the tool and fixtures significant to achieve those tasks can be settled in the approved 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 person 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 determined 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 construct process. I usually start my construct work from the back door of the space and work my way forward. You'll need to construct in all of the features that will be significant 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 emergency 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 access to your back of the house storehouse 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 storehouse 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 addition of a food prep sink and prep table will be necessary. If doing baking, gelato making, full cooking, or coffee roasting, all the tool significant 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 construct 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 motor and grinders, a dipper well, perhaps a granita machine, blenders, ice holding bin, blender rinse sink, hand washing sink, under counter refrigeration (under espresso motor and blenders), and a microwave oven.
If serving food beyond straightforward 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 acknowledge is yes, then an ice cream or gelato dipping cabinet will be significant along with an additional 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 perhaps a window or stand-up bar with bar stools. Impulse-buy and retail merchandise shelves should be established, and a condiment bar should be settled 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 opening evenings, and will perhaps serve beer and wine, and having comfortable seating will be important for creating a relaxing ambiance, then by all means do it. But if you have petite seating space, and are not trying to encourage population to relax and stay for long periods of time, then stick with cafe tables and chairs. The more population you can seat, the greater your revenue 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 voyage 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 payment has been taken, they should pace down-line away from the cash register to pick-up their beverage, and finally, the condiment bar should be settled beyond that point. Be sure to separate your point of order from the point of goods 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 inexperienced designers generally 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 pace to their next destination in the assistance sequence. Or, wanting to make their espresso motor 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 pace to the cashier first. If this happens dozens of times each day, blurring and slowed beverage output will be the result.
On the employee's side of the counter, work and goods flow are even more important. Any unnecessary steps or wasted movements that consequent from a less than optimal construct 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 singular item is a 3-step process, then placement of tool 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 nearnessy 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 goods preparation. Counter top space will also be needed where menu items will indeed be assembled. Think of the grouping of tool for different job functions as stations. Try to keep different stations ageement and in close working nearnessy to each other, but make sure that there is adequate space in the middle of each so that employee working-paths don't cross, which could contribute to employee collisions.
Creating defined work stations will allow you to put complicated employees behind the counter when needed. When it is busy, you may need to have 2 cashiers, another person just bagging pastries and brewing coffee, 2 baristas behind the espresso machine, a maybe even a dedicated person working the blenders. If you're preparation sandwiches and salads to order, then another person may need to be added to handle that task. holding your stations in close nearnessy to each other will allow one employee to indeed access all tool while very slow periods of business, thus saving you significant labor dollars.
When you dispose tool in connection to each other, keep in mind that most population are right handed. Stepping to the right of the espresso motor to access the espresso grinder will feel more comfortable than having to move to the left. Likewise, place your ice storehouse 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 create your store layout, the tool you take should fit your space and the needs of your predicted company volume. A busy location will most likely require a dual or twin, air pot, drip coffee brewer (one that can brew 2 pots at the same time), as opposed to a singular brewer. If you anticipate selling a lot of blended and ice drinks, then an under counter ice maker, one that can only furnish 100 pounds of ice or less per day, will not be sufficient. You should instead locate a high-capacity ice maker (one that can make 400 or 500 lbs. Per day) in the back of the house, and converyance ice to an ice holding bin up front. Plan to bring in icy desserts and ice cream? Then a 1 door reach-in freezer in the back of he house will probably be inadequate for you storehouse needs, so you'll need to reconsider a 2 or 3 door. I always advise a 3-group espresso motor for any location that may create 150 drinks per day or more. And, I can tell you from experience, you can never have too much dry or refrigerated storehouse space!
Make sure that any tool you take will be approved with your local bureaucracy before your buy and take delivery of it. All tool will typically need to be Nsf & Ul approved, or have a similar, acceptable, foreign certification equivalent. Your bureaucracy will most likely want to see builder specification sheets on all tool to verify this fact, before they'll approve your plans.
Ada (American's with Disabilities Act) compliancy 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 require your whole store to be Ada compliant. Following are some of the basic requirements of compliancy 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 provided 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, approved clearance nearby toilet and hand washing sink, etc.).
• No steps allowed, ramps are Ok with the permissible slope.
• If your space has complicated levels, then no feature may exist on a level where handicapped access has not been provided, if that same feature does not exist on a level where it will be accessible.
You can find the complete regulations for Ada compliancy at the following website:
http://www.access-board.gov/adaag/html/adaag.htm
Beyond the basic tool Floor Plan, showing new partitions, cabinets, equipment, fixtures, and furnishings, you'll need to furnish some additional drawings to guide your contractors and satisfy the bureaucracies.
Electrical Plan
An electrical plan will be significant 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 tool container will comprise items like an electric water heater, high-temperature dishwasher, or cooking tool (ovens, panini grill, etc.).
In addition to the electrical work required for your coffee business-specific equipment, you may need to adjust existing electrical for additional or reconfigured lighting, Hvac, general-purpose convenience outlets, and surface 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 emergency 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 approved for most fixtures and equipment, some will require 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 straight down from the piece of tool or fixture, and terminates 2 inches above the rim of a pottery floor sink drain. This pottery drain basin is usually installed directly into the floor. The air gap in the middle of the drain line from your tool or fixture, and the lowest of the basin, prevents any bacteria in the sewer pipe from migrating into the tool or fixture. I drain the following pieces of tool 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 motor and coffee brewer should be supplied by with treated water. Coffee is 98% to 99% water, so good water ability is essential. Your ice maker should only require a straightforward particle filter on the incoming line (unless your water ability 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 self-operating dishwasher. A grease interceptor is basically a box containing baffles that traps the grease before it can enter the group sewer system.
Also understand that a typical retail space will not come adequate with a water heater with adequate capacity to handle 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 significant to install pottery 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 significant 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 storehouse 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 furnish your cabinetmaker with a clear insight of all these features.
While your kitchen base cabinets at home are typically 24 inches deep, for market 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 corporeal dimensions of the equipment, so that it can be indeed inserted and removed for daily cleaning.
Dimensions Plan
You will need to create a floor plan showing all the significant dimensions for new partitions, doors, cabinets, and fixtures. This will, of course, help make sure that all ends up where it is suppose to be, and will be the right size.
A final thought about design; unless the space you will be designing is a clean vanilla shell (meaning, nothing currently exists in the space, except perhaps one Ada restroom), you will have to make sure that all the features that you are inspecting keeping, will be approved with your local bureaucracy. Many older buildings were not designed to gift codes. If the company type remains the same (your space was occupied 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 company 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 furnish ramps where there are steps. Good you know all these things before you begin your store design!
I always tell my consulting clients, that if I furnish a exquisite construct and layout for them, they will never notice... Because all will be exactly where you would expect it to be. Unfortunately, if you create a less than optimal construct for your coffee bar, you probably won't perceive it until you start working in it. Changing construct mistakes or inadequacies after the fact, can be extremely expensive. Not correcting those mistakes may even cost you more in lost possible sales. For this reason, I strongly advise using an experienced coffee company space designer to create your layout for you, or at very least, to divulge the construct you have created. Doing so will payoff with dividends.
How to construct and Layout a Coffee Shop Or Espresso Bar
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