How to build a cafe where food, art and retail goods are integrated?

In the experience economy, cafes have become the most common vehicle for transforming the real economy. Today, I want to share with you two successful cafe transformation projects that combine food, art and retail, from India and Japan.

Workshop inc.'s project café is a fresh and vibrant space that successfully blends food, art and retail. This multifunctional space uses catering as a catalyst to successfully expand the range from artists and designers to ordinary people. Workshop inc. chose to make the interior natural and unique in order to highlight the ever-changing merchandise displayed in the space. Everything here, including furniture, cutlery, linens and art, is for sale; the space is more than just a cafe embellished with contemporary merchandise.

Ornate niches are used for art and merchandise.

The cafe is located in a dilapidated shack in Ahmedabad, India, which consists mainly of several small and separated rooms that open up to achieve a sense of physical and visual connectivity. The freestanding walls are fitted with white-painted steel bars to display the merchandise. Each area in the cafe gives a playful and lively feeling, and at the same time has its own special place. The grid-like metal ceiling can be used to display products that need to be hung, creating a flexibility unique to this cafe.

Each space has its own unique furniture; walls designed in collaboration with different artists

retail display

Placing furniture in the middle ensures that people can move around flexibly

Use steel bars to create variable display frames

Leisure lounge

Outdoor design

Design of the ground

A cafe designed by ON design and also a Nordic grocery store Photographer: koichi torimura All images courtesy of ON design partners

Japanese studio ON design partners designed FIKA, a cafe and Nordic small goods store located in a quiet residential area of Tokyo. The owners of the goods use their wares on a two-story shelf every day, and the shop and cafe merge into one. The structure has a large glass facade through which passers-by can see the goods on the shelves. The house is divided into three floors, and a two-story entrance leads to a small kitchen on the first floor. In the second-floor warehouse, the rest area is very well lit, and there is also a private and elegant tatami space, but more private space is actually in the basement.

The house also sells Nordic small commodities

East of the house is a two-story shelf

Shelves display goods for sale that are often used by their owners

A kitchenette on the ground floor

The second floor is a private space with small tatami mats.

Under the eaves of the building is the top storeroom, there are no more attic storerooms, but the lighting is very good.

The facade of the building is designed with large glass faces to attract potential customers

Fika in the Night

plan view

Layout/1st Floor

Layout/Basement

Layout/2nd Floor

Hand-drawn drawing showing the spatial layout of the house