Your coffee shop’s layout is as important as where you source your beans. A good coffee shop floor plan supports your shop’s electrical, plumbing, and sanitation needs and uses furnishings to invite customers in while subtly guiding them through the ordering process. The best coffee shop floor plans are easy to navigate and adhere to the accessibility standards set by the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).
Designing your coffee shop floor plan is one of the most impactful steps in opening a coffee shop. You can create a coffee shop floor plan with pen and paper or use a floor plan app. Whichever system you choose, you’ll need to configure customer-facing areas (also called front-of-house) and staff areas (also called back-of-house) and add furniture, fixtures, and equipment (FF&E) that comply with the health code and appeal to your target customers.
You came here for coffee shop floor plan ideas, so let’s get right into some examples. Then, we’ll dig into the step-by-step design process.
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Coffee Shop Floor Plan Examples
The examples below showcase several potential coffee shop floor plans. I’ve included information about each layout’s size, ideal location, and target customer to help you find the best fit for your shop.
Coffee Counter
Description: Coffee counters are pit-stop coffee shops that rely on grab-and-go sales without seating.
Why it works: The small footprint allows this shop to meet customers where they are, in business cores or near rail lines. This floor plan is built for speed to serve customers quickly on their commutes or work breaks. A quick-stop shop should utilize vertical space to sell retail items like mugs and coffee beans or impulse purchases like newspapers and chewing gum.
Great for: Busy center city locations where real estate is expensive; business districts; near business and transportation hubs
Size: 600 to 800 square feet
Target customer: Commuters and office workers taking a work break
Real-world example: Ikon Roastery in San Francisco, Blue Bottle Coffee Kiosk in San Francisco
Galley-style Coffee Shop
Description: This midsize shop has a long espresso bar running in the back of the shop and intimate seating arrangements of various sizes spread throughout. It may also have a drive-thru where zoning permits. The barista staff can easily view the customer entrance from the counter.
Why it works: Most of the shop is given to flexible, movable seating. Customers can move the furniture easily to accommodate different size groups, and staff can move furniture to accommodate events like live music and book readings. This layout also pushes the espresso counter to the back of the shop to allow staff a broad view of the service floor, so they can easily see areas that need cleaning or restocking.
Size: 800 to 1,000 square feet
Great for: Large suburban shops with parking lots
Target customer: Customers who want to socialize, write, or work remotely. Customer Wifi is typically a must for these shops.
Real-world example: Bolt Coffee Shop in Rhode Island
Pocket Coffee Shop
Description: With an espresso bar facing a wide open entrance, limited seating, and lots of retail display space on the walls, this circular configuration makes the most of tight spaces.
Why it works: Circular countertops and seating spaces remove sharp angles that can be difficult to move around. Staff and customers can maneuver easily around the space. The lower levels of the circular bar are ideal for showcasing impulse purchases.
Size: 900 to 1,300 square feet
Great for: Busy shopping centers and malls
Target Customer: Shoppers, travelers, and sporadic one-time customers are most common for pocket shops. Socializers are a secondary customer type, though, so you should have a few small, comfortable seating areas.
Real-world example: Voyager Espresso in Manhattan
Large Coffee Shop
Description: Lots of lounge seating spread across various levels and rooms allows customers to use the space as a meeting place for casual dates or business meetings.
Why it works: Large coffee shops have a community expectation that they act as a backup living or meeting room for local residents and travelers. As a result, many large coffee shops create room dividers with shelves or furniture that display merchandise. To allow room for lines to form, the espresso counter tends to run along the widest wall and be sited at the back of the shop. Where zoning allows, large shops set back from the road benefit from signage posted at a height that can be seen for several blocks or even a nearby highway.
Size: 3,500 to 4,000-plus square feet
Location: Large shops in city centers or suburbs
Target customer: One-time visitors on shopping excursions or vacations are common in this type of shop. They are also common meeting places for customers to meet and socialize. These shops have lots of comfortable seating and a plan for staging live music.
Real-world example: Tatte Bakery in Boston (or any of their locations through Massachusetts, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.)
Steps to Design a Coffee Shop Floor Plan
Now that your creative juices are flowing, let’s talk about how to physically create your coffee shop floor plan; from idea stage to blueprints.
Step 1: Draw Your Basic Floor Plan
To begin visualizing your space as a coffee shop, start by sketching your location’s layout. You can do this on a drawing app or just use a sheet of paper and draw freehand. If you’re drawing freehand, use gridded graph paper; it helps ensure everything is drawn to scale.
Also, add to your basic floor plan:
- Existing utilities: Find the location of existing electrical lines and water lines, and note them on your floor plan. It is most cost-effective to plan your equipment placement where these lines are easily accessible. If your location is a raw space, there won’t be any lines run yet; you will need to find a contractor to give you an estimate on running lines where you need them.
- Existing entrances: You need entrances for your staff, customers, and supplies. Ideally, you’ll have a separate entrance for supplies and customers so your customers don’t need to step around delivery dollies to get their morning coffee. The main customer entrance will also influence the location, size, and shape of your main service counter. You should note all the existing entrances and exits on your floor plan drawing.
You don’t need to buy a pad of graph paper to draw a floor plan. You can print a grid for free from websites like Print Graph Paper.
Step 2: Assess Your Operational Needs
The next step in creating a coffee shop floor plan is detailing what you plan to sell, which of those items you plan to prepare in-house, and how many staff members and customers will be in your space simultaneously.
Start by asking yourself these questions:
- What will you serve? Be specific. There are many ways to prepare coffee. Will you serve brewed coffee? Espresso drinks? Pour-over? French-press? Brewed teas? Iced beverages? Will you offer dairy-free milk alternatives? What kind and how many?
- Will you prepare each item that you sell? Or will you buy-in some items (like baked goods and bottled beverages) ready-made? Will you sell only beverages? Or food and beverages?
- What about retail merchandise? The beautiful part of merchandise is that it has a long shelf life. Mugs, tumblers, totes, and t-shirts are all great coffee shop products.
- What type of equipment do you need to receive, store, prepare, and sell each item?
- How many baristas will work at the same time? How many cashiers? You’ll need space for all the staff to work around one another. You’ll need at least three square feet per employee at a minimum.
- How many customers will visit your shop at peak times? This will determine how much space you need to allow for lines. If you are not yet open, visit nearby coffee shops to get an idea of how many customers you can expect.
- Will customers sit in your shop, or will they grab and go? Essentially, will you need room for tables and chairs in or near your shop?
Once you’ve answered these questions, note an estimated volume of each item you’ll expect to use in a week to support your customer volume and sales projections. You’ll need to add enough storage space to your coffee shop floor plan for store supplies and backstock.
If you don’t have a lot of storage space (many coffee shops don’t), negotiate with your suppliers to get multiple deliveries throughout the week. You’ll need more administrative bandwidth to check in orders and manage invoices, but you won’t need as much onsite storage space.
Step 3: Design Your Counter
Now, it is time to take the information from the previous steps to identify the best place on your floor plan to place your counter. The service counter is the main focal point of your coffee shop. Don’t get boxed into a single straight line; depending on your location’s size, the shape of the counter might be diagonal or even circular. Use the floorplan graphics at the top of this article as inspiration.
When placing your counter, also consider:
- Location of customer entrance: It’s ideal for your counter to face your customer entrance. This makes it easy to see and greet customers.
- Location of utilities: Your service counter will house electrical equipment like your point of sale system. It will also contain water lines and drain lines to support your espresso machine, coffee brewers, and hand wash sinks. You may also need built-in, reach-in refrigerators, and chilled display cases. So you need to be sure that you place your counter in a spot where you can bring all of these utilities together.
- Available space: To fit an espresso machine, the counter itself only needs to be about 2 feet wide. In addition to the counter, you’ll need a back bar workspace for your staff on one side and a gathering space for customers on the other. You’ll need to allow for at least 14 feet of width on your floor plan.
Sketch out a preliminary counter layout on your app. If you’re hand drawing, sketch your counter options on a separate piece of graph paper. You can cut out the sample counter and try placing it in different configurations on your paper plan.
Step 4: Choose Equipment
Coffee shop equipment comes in multiple sizes, so you should choose your equipment before finalizing your coffee shop floor plan. You may discover that you need to source smaller equipment or build larger counters to accommodate the equipment you need.
Local building codes and health department regulations will have some influence over what type of equipment you use and where it can be placed. Hand-washing sinks and dishwashers require floor drains; refrigerators and ovens will need room for ventilation. It is a good idea to get the advice of a contractor familiar with installing restaurant equipment to let you know where you can place large equipment like walk-in refrigerators and ovens.
When choosing equipment, and equipment placement, consider:
- Local health code standards: Local health codes will require the placement of sinks for hand-washing and dish-washing. You will also need enough refrigerators to keep perishable products like milk below 41 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Local building codes: You may need to consult with an architect or building contractor to ensure that water lines, electrical lines, and both ventilation and sanitation plans adhere to local building codes.
- Communication: Wi-Fi is another connection you need to consider, not just for your customers but also for your own operation. Many coffee shops use a cloud-based point-of-sale (POS) system. If you use one, you want to be sure that the Wi-Fi router is not blocked by walls. This can create communication issues and cause your system to malfunction.
Get the measurements for any equipment you are thinking about. Add the equipment options to your app-based or paper floorplan (in the same way that you did for your counter options). Try different configurations to find the equipment that fits best in your shop.
Step 5: Plan for Line Formation
Before your floor plan gets too crowded, you need to think about foot traffic. There needs to be enough open space in your floor plan for people to stand.
It’s best when your coffee shop’s floor plan makes it clear where customers should form lines. The placement of fixtures and furniture can provide the space for line formation—an aisle at least 36 inches wide is best—while signage can provide visual cues. If your shop is busy enough, plan for a custom queue that folds around shelving or stanchions.
Step 6: Check for Accessibility
Ensure that your shop is accessible to people with mobility issues and people with disabilities to create an inclusive environment and expand your customer base. All places of business open to the public have certain obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). You can find full guidelines on the ADA website, but essentially the ADA will impact the width of aisles, doorways, counter height, and restroom design.
You’ll want to keep these ADA-recommended measurements in mind as you lay out your aisles and set aside space for bathrooms and line formation.
- Doorways must be at least 32 inches wide, and most hallways and passages should be at least 36 inches wide.
- Wheelchairs need at least 60 inches of space to turn around completely, though a properly configured T-junction also allows room for turning. These dimensions are especially important in designing an accessible restroom.
- To be accessible to customers in wheelchairs, your condiment stations should be no more than 34 inches tall. If your self-service areas are higher than this, be sure to add an alternative self-service station that is 34 inches or lower.
Adhering to the ADA is good for business. The Administration on Aging projects that there will be more than 69 million Americans age 65 and older by 2030, making up approximately 20% of the total US population. Add this to the already 50 million Americans with disabilities, and you’re looking at a customer base that outnumbers any single cultural, racial, or ethnic group in the country. Read our restaurant guide to ADA compliance for more guidance on creating an accessible shop.
Step 7: Add Furnishings and Fixtures
Your coffee shop floor plan is practically complete. The final flourish is adding your fixtures (like light fixtures and a sound system) and furnishings (like chairs and retail displays).
The fixtures and furnishings that are best for your shop will vary based on your target customer. You can break down most of a coffee shop’s regular customers based on the ways they use a coffee shop space. The main coffee shop customer types are sightseers, socializers, and break-takers. These three types have different expectations of an ideal coffee shop experience, and their preferences will influence the type and placement of your coffee shop’s fixtures and furnishings.
Explore the sections below to see how each customer type influences your shop’s fixtures and furnishings:
Coffee shop “sightseers” are customers who are in your shop for a one-time transaction. Sightseers are coffee patrons who are passing through and looking for a quiet, comfortable, one-time experience in your shop. Sightseers might be visiting tourists or travelers passing through on a cross-country drive. In a mall setting, sightseers could be shoppers who are taking downtime during a longer shopping excursion. Sightseers might also be real estate agents who use your space to illustrate the appeal of your neighborhood to clients.
Sightseers need comfortable chairs and menus that are easy to navigate. They are also interested in purchasing small items like mugs, tumblers, aprons, and other souvenirs that are emblazoned with the name of your city or a nearby landmark.
To attract sightseers:
- Fixtures should showcase your own retail offerings, from mugs and whole bean coffee to branded merchandise like hats, shirts, and aprons.
- Furnishings should be comfortable and roomy, with space to place shopping bags and packages.
Customers who meet friends, dates, or business prospects in a coffee shop are “socializers.” Socializers tend to like secluded nooks in coffee shops and prize a welcoming ambiance. Socializers are great for business because they are the most likely to convert to regular customers—every coffee shop’s bread and butter.
Socializers may return for open mic nights or live music in your shop. They may also build relationships with your staff and add a sense of community to your business. A subset of socializers are people who work from home and use their local coffee shop as a sort of co-working space.
Coffee shops in any location will have some percentage of socializer customers. Small towns and tightly knit neighborhoods—both urban and suburban—see a higher percentage of them, though.
Locations with a large number of socializing customers should have:
- Fixtures that are flexible and have various uses for events like live music, book readings, coffee tastings, and brewing classes.
- Furnishings that are sturdy and easily moved to accommodate groups of different sizes and various types of events.
Live performances sometimes require local permits or cabaret licenses. If live musicians perform covers of popular music, this may also be subject to a music licensing fee. Check your local zoning ordinances to be sure you are operating legally.
Break-takers are folks who visit a coffee shop once a day or more. They tend to be individuals who work nearby and need a quick way to refuel during their day. Since break-takers are usually coming from a work environment, they also tend to enjoy people-watching from a countertop or window seat.
Countertop seating along a window is a great way to appeal to single customers who are taking a work break. If you have a sidewalk permit, outdoor tables and chairs are popular with people who need a breath of fresh air after spending hours in an office.
Coffee shops located near office towers will likely have a high percentage of break-taking customers. These shops should have:
- Fixtures that guide line formation and clear signage for customers to navigate the menu and order queue.
- Furnishings that appeal to solitary customers, like countertops and small-footprint sidewalk or patio seating.
Sidewalk and patio seating typically require permits. Check your local zoning codes before adding outdoor seating.
Take note of the dimensions of your preferred furnishings and fixtures and add them to your floor plan. Lay out your furnishings and fixtures before ordering any; you want to ensure that your preferred items will fit in your space, leaving enough room for your staff and customers to easily move throughout your shop.
With your furniture and fixtures added to your sketch, your coffee shop floor plan is complete. Depending on how you plan to use it—as part of a business plan or to entice investors—you may want to turn over your work to a professional designer to polish it. You can find one by asking other businesses who they use or using freelancing sites like Fiverr or Upwork.
Coffee Shop Floor Plan Case Study: Drugstore Coffee
This Nashville coffee shop is located in the lobby of the Noelle Hotel in downtown Nashville. The smart floorplan makes clever use of a small space, with seating that appeals both to groups and single patrons. Tucked just beside the hotel’s main entrance, inside the main lobby, the location supports foot traffic from hotel guests and break-takers from nearby offices.
If you’re looking for inspiration for your coffee shop floor plan, you can walk through the virtual tour of Drugstore Coffee right on the Noelle Hotel website. There are a lot of great details in the Drugstore Coffee floor plan, from the variety of seating options to the long service counter and excellent use of natural light. Though not all coffee shops can steal every idea from Drugstore Coffee; this shop can share storage spaces with the hotel, so they don’t have to worry about maintaining space for hundreds of to-go cups and retail backstock.
Last Bite
Planning your coffee shop floor plan is a crucial step to opening a coffee shop. The best coffee shop floor plans are based on the shop’s location, size, and target customer. Most independent coffee shop owners plan the placement of fixtures, furnishings, and product displays alone or with the support of their suppliers. You will, however, need to ensure that water lines, electrical lines, and ventilation and sanitation plans adhere to building and health codes.
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