How to Start a Coffee Shop or Cafe: An Architect’s Perspective

Also, we just really love coffee.

So we understand the little things that make a big difference in a café: how the bar flows, how the space feels, and how to create the kind of atmosphere people want to come back to, again and again…

We’re not just here to make things look beautiful, though it definitely helps when your space turns heads. We’re here to bring your vision to life, from first spark to final detail. This guide pulls together what we’ve learned from years of working with café owners just like you: people turning an idea (and a love of coffee) into something real. 

Part 1: Defining Your Vision

Before you start thinking about espresso machines, floor plans, or tile colors, it’s worth asking yourself one critical question:

Why do you want to open a coffee shop?

The most successful cafés are rooted in a clear vision. They serve a specific purpose, reflect the personality of their founders, and solve a real need in their community. Without that clarity from the start, it’s easy to get lost in a saturated market.

The Café as a Place

Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Cigarettes and Coffee” revolves around a series of interconnected characters whose lives intersect in subtle and unexpected ways, all tied together by a single moment at the same café.

If the walls of a bustling café could talk, they might share stories of ideas being born (or quietly dying on the vine), of lovers reconnecting after time apart, or of strangers engaged in unexpected, soul-stirring conversations about life’s joys and sorrows all unfolding over a simple cup of coffee.

At their core, cafés are deeply human places. They exist for connection: physical, emotional, creative. They transcend borders and bridge cultures. For generations, they’ve been backdrops to movements, muses for artists, gathering spots for thinkers and writers and people who just need a soft place to land.

There’s a reason cafés show up again and again in film and literature: they hold space for life to happen.

So if you’re setting out to open a coffee shop, it’s worth pausing here.

Ask yourself:

• What role will your café play in the lives of the people who walk through its doors?
  
• What kind of energy will it hold?
  
• What memories will it create?

What will make your café feel different, more personal, more thoughtful, than the Starbucks or Peet’s around the corner?

The answers to these questions matter. They’ll shape your brand, your design, and the way people experience your space. Get clear on the feeling you want to create and everything else will follow.

Finding Your Backstory

Coffee Bar’s mezzanine (RIP), san francisco, ca

The café as a “place” holds its own special little corner in the caffeine-fueled heart of our small business, and we often reminisce with our coffee clients about how Studio BANAA was conceived.

The year was 2015, and Nastaran and I were young, nomadic freelance architects. Not in a position to rent a “real” office, we spent our workdays drifting around cafés across the city, embarking daily on our sleepy search for the perfect workspace: free WiFi, two open tables, and a readily available outlet were all we needed to get through the day (aside from paying the “coffee tax” a few times daily, of course).

Our go-to haunt back then was the now-defunct café on Bryant Street, aptly named Coffee Bar, pictured above. Nestled inside a large concrete warehouse, the café lived up to its central concept: a vast double-height seating area with a mezzanine surrounding a centrally located coffee bar on three sides. The bar itself was the focal point from every angle: a bustling nucleus with counter seating where you could watch the baristas pull espresso after silky espresso.

And spatial arrangements aside, Coffee Bar’s greatest strength was how it catered to the increasing demand for remote work. According to its owner, it was one of the first informal co-working cafés in San Francisco. The ambient noise, the hum of conversations, and the relaxed atmosphere helped many of us focus better than in any traditional office.

Ten years later, in the wake of COVID, many new office designs now attempt to mimic the liveliness and casual energy of cafés, replacing the sterile rows of desks with more human-centered environments. Who knew?

Define Your Café’s Identity

Opening a café in today’s market takes more than great beans and a solid pastry lineup (although it’s a great start). You need a clear differentiator; something that defines your brand and sets your space apart from the crowd.

Examples from our own work and community:

Manny’s
3092 16th St, San Francisco, CA 

A community-driven café that hosts political meetups, lectures, and civic events. The café is centered around the open space and modular seating, allowing for flexible layouts and expanded capacity for their frequent lectures.

Your differentiator might be a complementary offering, like in-house baking, a focus on roasting, or curated retail. Or it might be tied to a specific customer base, like families, remote workers, or commuters. It could even be inspired by your personal story, culture, or values.

The more specific and authentic you can get, the more memorable, and successful, your café will be.

Laying the Foundation:
Coffee Shop Design Must-Haves

Before you hire an architect for your coffee shop or start sketching floor plans on the back of a napkin, it helps to have a few key ideas floating around. Nothing needs to be set in stone (in fact, most of it will evolve), but having a sense of direction will make the design process that much smoother.

The BANAA team sitting down with Voyager founders Sam and Lauren to plan their next location

When we work with clients, we go through a thorough discovery phase where we ask a lot of questions to uncover these things together. But if you’ve already given some of this a little thought, you’re ahead of the game.

Here’s what we’re talking about:

• Your concept – What’s your café really about? What’s the bigger idea behind it?
  
• Your customer – Who’s your space for? Locals, students, commuters, families, niche communities? Cat people? Spite store?
  
• Your products – What are you serving, and why? Coffee, yes, but what else? What’s your signature offering?
  
• Your service style – Is it a quick grab-and-go counter, a cozy hangout spot, or something in between?

Again, this doesn’t need to be a fully developed business plan,  but starting with a rough outline of your vision helps us design a space that actually supports how your café will operate, not just how it looks on Instagram.

We’ll help you refine and expand on all of this during our initial workshops and precedent studies, but planting the seed early makes everything grow a little more intentionally.

Start with the Story: Our Process

At Studio BANAA, before we even think about picking up a pencil or iPad, we start by getting to know you. Your business, your brand, your story, your food or drink (or even the individual ingredients). Your life story (well, maybe not that deep) but you get the idea.

We’re looking for what makes you click. We ask a lot of questions through early meetings, written questionnaires, and a “precedent study” presentation, where we walk you through a range of other projects; you might love some, you might hate others (honestly, the strong reactions are helpful either way).

All of this helps us move beyond surface-level design to find what’s actually meaningful, something that ultimately shows up in everything from the big concept down to the materials, colors, and smallest details in the space.

Real Design Journeys to Inspire Your Coffee Shop Vision

These examples show how we turn brand stories into spaces that stick with people – something every great café should do.

What This Series Will Cover

This blog series will walk you through the major steps of opening a coffee shop, with a focus on design, branding, and spatial planning, from those early napkin-sketch ideas all the way through construction. We’ll cover everything from concept development and layout to construction documentation, permitting, and working with engineers and consultants. We’ll also touch on what to expect during the construction process itself.

We won’t dive into the day-to-day logistics like profit margins or staffing models, but we will help you understand how to create a space that supports your business goals from day one, and how good design can set the foundation for long-term success.