How to Design a Cafe Floor Plan, Layout and Blueprint

The floor plan of your cafe isn’t just about creating a space with cozy corners. Just like a coffee shop floor plan, it should flow and be intuitive to navigate for all guests. Not only that, but many states will ask for building permits and cafe or restaurant floor plan layouts before creating your cafe. This means that the cafe floor plan’s critical for your business.

If you really want to create a desirable customer experience and the best atmosphere for employees (plus ensure that all construction follows legal expectations!), you’ll need to design a cafe floor plan. This guide will help you do just that, ensuring your cafe will be optimized to achieve long-term success.

Key Takeaways

• Software Can Aid Your Design Process: It can help you visualize the walls, layout, chairs, tables, doors, and seating arrangements in the building layout of the cafe.

• A Cafe Shop Floor Plan Helps You Plan the Space: They’ll ensure you see all areas of the floor space and choose where each element should go.

• Getting a Permit is Obligatory: You’re going to need a permit before you begin the building process, which will require a floor plan, which you’ll submit to the state officials.

• You Need to Consider Accessibility: It’s important that all of your customers feel welcome and can access your cafe facilities, which is why accessibility is important.

What Is a Cafe Floor Plan?

So, what’s a cafe floor plan? Well, just like a coffee shop layout, it’s a map of the physical space of the whole cafe. Every single inch of space counts in your floor plan, both indoor and outdoor (such as the outdoor seating area). That’s because - ultimately - the floor plan will let you visualize how all the spaces of your cafe will align and work in an efficient way.

Floor plans will need you to bring together creativity and research skills to ensure they're aesthetically stunning but easy to access. While the ambiance and cafe experience are important, you shouldn’t forget that how your guests and servers will navigate your cafe is critical.

A cafe floor plan should include:

1. The coffee bar area

2. Prep areas

3. The kitchen

4. The ordering queue

5. Waiting areas

6. Dining and seating areas

7. Staff areas, offices, and break rooms

8. Your cafe’s POS system and cashier stations

9. Restrooms

10. Dish area(s)

11. Doors

12. Windows

13. Emergency Exits

14. Accurate measurements of the space

How to Create a Cafe Floor Plan

Now, when thinking about the design process of your cafe - you can choose to take the lead and complete the plan on your own, or you can request someone’s help. It’s important to learn about creating a blueprint and floor plan for your cafe, whether you’re working with a designer or remodeling it yourself. 

These sections will help you get an idea of how to start the coffee shop design process, which can begin with using floor plan design software to create a map of each of the spaces in your cafe using the best practices.

Floor Plan Software Options

If you’re keen to start the design process yourself, don’t get too concerned about not being an architect, artist, or anyone with quality drawing skills. A bunch of software options can make designing your cafe’s floor plan simple. SmartDraw, ConceptDraw, and Cad Pro are all reliable software that can create a custom blueprint for your cafe. 

• SmartDraw: If you want maximum visibility of each space and the location of each element, like the furniture and fixtures, you’ll get this with SmartDraw. It’s got a range of floor plan libraries that you can customize to see how the tables and cozy corners of your cafe are laid out.

• ConceptDraw: If you want easy visualization of the distribution of your cafe elements, ConceptDraw will help. With advanced interior design tools that are easy to use and even piping and instrumentation software tools, this software makes the cafe floor plan design process effortless.

• Cad Pro: The ready-made visuals Cad Pro offers enable you to see the tables, chairs, walls, and furniture with minimal difficulty in the floor plan. It also offers you the chance to work collaboratively on the floor plan by sharing it with others in different formats, which means you can get support on the design when required.

Interior Design Studio to Create a Cafe Floor Plan

Consulting an interior designer can help you achieve an easy-to-navigate cafe floor plan implementing the right ambiance, experience, and inviting environment you want for your happy customers. 

Your interior designer will guide you through painting, decorating, and purchasing furniture that’s functional for your space and suits your cafe’s aesthetic. They’ll, of course, also help you with the cafe layout and floor space and ensure the great layout supports all kinds of guests to successfully navigate your space.

Cafe Floor Plan Design Best Practices

We’re fully aware of the potential issues that can arise when running a cafe that has a poor layout. It can lead to a chaotic service flow that makes it difficult to please customers. You may be using an interior designer to help, but if you’re doing this mostly on your own, think about the best practices below for a great layout:

1. Waiting Space Allocation: Include ample space for your guests to queue up in a line to order and then pass in a circular motion to the pick-up location. This space might be in front of the coffee bar area, where they can place their order with a barista and then wait in a space that doesn’t interrupt the flow of service. 

2. Staff Break Areas: Think carefully about where your employees will be working and where they’ll be taking a break. You’ll need to measure the space behind the coffee bar area and also allocate a space toward the back of the cafe that’s sufficient for all baristas to work and relax in.

3. Natural Cafe Service Flow: Ensure customers are not confused by how your cafe works by creating an intuitive flow of service. This may involve ensuring the coffee bar is easy to see, and you might want to use a circular service flow as opposed to lining people up in the same location where others are placing an order.

4. Accessible Spaces and Ambiance: Design accessible spaces and a good layout with your customers in mind. Consider both your guests’ and employees' needs, as well as local building codes, when designing the floor plans for all of your cafe’s spaces. But also think carefully about how the floor plan will match the theme and ambiance of your cafe.

5. POS System Placement: This will involve planning the placement of the POS systems so that baristas can efficiently conduct transactions. At the same time, the POS system placement (which might be near the display area) can make it easy to communicate with the kitchen if your cafe is serving food. Don’t forget to also consider the capacity of the shop to install the correct number of POS systems.

Cafe Floor Plan: Key Area Sections

From experience, we know and advise that badly planned cafe floor plans can affect the flow of every employee, especially the barista. This is why you might want to ask a barista to help you design your coffee bar. As you request their advice, consider that there are so many innovative ways to create a cafe floor plan in each of the key area sections, and turn your attention to other key areas below.

Cafe Kitchen Floor Plan

You might have limited space for the cafe kitchen floor plan, but you’ll be able to optimize it for maximum production while ensuring employees can brew coffee, cook, and bake tasty treats. Here are the main considerations for this:

• Inventory Management: You’ll need to allocate a space where employees can handle the inventory checks for the kitchen. This might be a space that features shelving near the storage area, so you’ll need to measure the space, divide it accordingly, and add the shelving or cupboard storage to the design.

• Prep Space: You’re going to need ample space in the prep area to create menu items, space for cafe equipment like coffee machines, counters, and other elements. This means it’s important to measure the counter space and each of these elements to ensure the equipment can be placed strategically and the workflow is smooth.

• Dishwashing: Make sure you have a place for dishwashing and incorporate this into the plan. For instance, you might need a large sink that has three compartments and a dishwasher machine placed near it to optimize the space and plumbing.

Staff Area Floor Plan

Always remember to incorporate an office or break room in the plan. This is going to require reserving space at the back-of-house - one area for administrative tasks and one area for relaxing or taking a break.

• Schedule Posting Area: Designating an area for staff to sit and check schedules will keep your cafe organized. Measure the space and then provide a communal location where you’ll post schedules and announcements. In this space, employees or baristas should be able to gather and view the schedules you post.

• Break Area: The break room is going to need enough space for all staff to sit comfortably and move around. Consider the number of baristas or employees you’ll have and the amount of space you’ve got. Then, you’ll need to allocate more space to lounge chairs and tables by measuring the total space of the break room. Keep in mind that the break area should be included in 40% of the entire floor plan.

The Eating Area Floor Plan 

The seating area or dining area is arguably the most important floor plan you’ll make. It’s the one that will really affect the guest experience. Your dining room floor plan needs to match the aesthetic of your cafe. 

• Square Footage Per Guest: If you’re going for a simple coffee shop, then a sleek, open floor plan may achieve your goals. But if you’re looking to create that quintessentially cozy cafe, this model may not work. You may want something more intimate. The floor plan choice all depends on the cafe you’re aiming for. Regardless, keep in mind that each guest should have 18 - 20 square feet of space.

• Spacing Requirements: The optimum amount of space between each table needs to be 42 - 60 inches if your tables are square. This space requirement is different if your tables are diagonal, which will require 24 - 30 inches between them.

Entrance Floor Plan

The first impression of your cafe will come from the entrance of the coffee shop. This means it’s crucial that your entrance space invites guests in and shows off a cozy atmosphere, and provides them with crucial information about your cafe. Here’s how to do this.

• Visual Appeal: Your priority should include making the design visually appealing, and doing this may require factoring in a few elements that look aesthetically charming in the space. You’ll want to add inviting lighting to the space and strategically place comfortable seats near the windows at the front of the cafe.

• Exterior Design: You can place the ordering counter near the entrance or guide your customers there with signs or creative architectural elements, as this will help happy customers navigate the space easily. To invite customers in, you may also consider an overhanging element on the exterior of the cafe, but this will, of course, depend on the location. If the cafe is located inside a shopping mall, you may want to focus on signage on the exterior as opposed to an overhang.

Restrooms Floor Plan

For an attractive edge, you’ll need to design restrooms that can accommodate all guests. They’ll need to be big and spacious enough for this and easy to access. So consider the tips below to achieve this. 

• Location Ideas: The restroom is best placed where customers can access it without entering a staff zone. So we really recommend allocating an entirely separate corridor that leads to these restrooms and putting this on the floor plan so that service flow isn’t interrupted and staff areas can remain separate.

• Accessibility Needs: Accessibility in restaurants should be something you’re thinking about during the planning phase. It means including grab bars and wide doors in your design, as well as wide corridors leading up to the restroom. The example just below is a good instance of a design with wide corridors, grab bars, and separate accessible restrooms within the men’s and women’s restrooms.

SOURCE: AutoCAD

Counter and POS Station Floor Plan

The POS is the center of your cafe – it’s essential, as it ensures cashiers or servers can easily communicate with cooks and baristas. It’ll also help you keep track of all of your cafe’s operations in a smooth, seamless way, and placing them in the right locations is important. Here’s how to do this:

• Terminal Placement: You may consider putting a POS station near the counter in a counter-service cafe. This makes it easier for customers to place their orders with a cashier. But keep in mind that servers need to be able to access the POS stations, so if you have several baristas or servers, you may want to put one on each side of the cafe bar area. 

• Handheld Terminal POS Systems: You alternatively might want to think about handheld POS devices that your servers can use tableside. This means they won’t need to return to the cafe bar area to receive payments.

Emergency Exits Floor Plan

It’s obligatory to consider emergency exits in the cafe floor plan so you’ll have to map these out when you’re creating the layout. Tips such as using egress paths and sticking to safety rules are important. 

For instance, egress paths have to be able to handle occupant loads and be kept clear in the event of an emergency. This’ll ensure all customers and staff can exit the premises through the egress path easily in an emergency. When you’ve planned these egress paths, let customers and staff members know where they are.

For an example of well-planned egress paths, check the example below, where each egress path is clear and easy to access:

SOURCE: SmartDraw.com

Accessibility Requirements for Cafe Floor Plans

To ensure all individuals can utilize your cafe, accessibility is fundamental. This requires thinking about wheelchair users and those who have disabilities. Individuals will need sufficient space to move around or rotate their wheelchairs, which should include at least 60 inches of space.

Also, don’t forget to incorporate wide corridors in the restrooms and, as mentioned, grab bars for individuals with disabilities. Include these elements in the cafe floor plan with accurate, well-thought-out measurements.

How to Choose a Cafe Floor Plan

Choosing a cafe floor plan might seem challenging, even when you’re working with an interior designer. Yet, we’ve got further tips on how to do this. Find out how to choose a cafe floor plan using the advice below.

Available Space & Coffee Bar Requirements

To understand your seating plan, you need to acknowledge that in cafes, 60% of the space is used for guests (and seating), and the remaining 40% should always be allocated to the prep, the coffee bar, staff areas, and the kitchen (as stated by Total Food).

We can visualize how this would look with an example. If your cafe has 3,200 square feet, the customer seating area would be 1,920 square feet, and the remaining 1,280 square feet would be for the staff area, the kitchen, and the coffee bar.

Space Allocation Priorities

Now, you’ll need to look ahead to space allocation priorities and the space each customer should have. Let’s give an example using the suggested capacity above. A 3,200-square-foot cafe space would have 1,920 square feet of space for guests. 

Since the capacity for a counter service cafe like this would be 106 customers, each guest would have approximately 18 square feet of space. In terms of the table spacing, remember that a square set of tables should have between 42 and 60 inches between them, so factor these measurements in when you’re creating the cafe floor plan.

Permit Requirements

Always remember that permit requirements are essential before you build. Permits for coffee shop construction can be granted after you complete the blueprints, and state officials will give you a construction, occupancy, and building health permit when you’ve passed the licensing inspection.

With the right preparation and attention to detail, and by liaising with state officials and permit offices, you can get the right approvals. It’s with these steps that you’ll also be able to get any changes confirmed and approved—ensuring everything goes ahead on time.

Execute your Cafe’s Floor Plan and Run Your Cafe with Technology from Toast

After completing those floor plans and building the cafe, you’ll get to do the most exciting part—you’ll be able to run the cafe! You can see how each component and each element works together to ensure every happy customer returns to your cafe.

So what remains? Well, finally, it’s with the right technology that you can keep the cafe functioning optimally. Benchmarking software, POS systems, inventory management solutions, and more can help with the day-to-day cafe operations. 

FAQs

What Is a Good Size for a Cafe?

This will be between 600 and 900 square feet if you want to make a small-sized cafe. It’ll measure between 1,000 and 1,750 square feet if you want to make a medium-sized cafe. Yet for extra seating or a larger kitchen, you might want to think about a larger floor plan.

What Number of Seating is Ideal for Small and Medium Cafes?

This will be seating for between 20 and 40 in a small-sized cafe measuring between 600 and 900 square feet. On the other hand, it’ll be seating for between 50 and 70 people for a medium-sized cafe that measures between 1,000 and 1,700 square feet. However, you can afford to increase this to more seats if the space is larger.