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4 Top Tips To Help Increase Your Cafe’s Seating Capacity For Christmas

Having an efficient café design and layout is one of the most important factors in positioning your café business for success. Speed of service should be at the top of your list with your food preparation area and serving counter ergonomically placed to serve as many customers as possible during your peak business times to maximise your sales.

Within a busy café, each dining seat has a capability of earning an average of $100 a day in sales. So say you have 10 seats and you open for 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, then your 10 seats could achieve a turnover per day of $1,000 which adds up to $6,000 per week. Now, imagine if you could double your seating capacity, particularly over the festive period, then it doesn’t take a mathematician to see see that your earning potential shoots up to $12,000 per week. The burning question is how to increase your seating capacity?

ñ  Changing your layout

One of the best layouts to allow for maximum seating is to have a series of bar counters running around the side walls of your café with communal seating running down the middle, either in the form of refectory style tables or café tables clipped together. This still allows plenty of room for staff and customers to move about freely and makes the best use of your space.

ñ  Choose your furniture wisely

Whilst upholstered sofas and coffee tables look aesthetically pleasing, they do take up an awful lot of floor space. If you’re not planning on being open during the evenings,serving wine or beer and generally creating a warming ambience to encourage your customers to linger, then stick with café tables and chairs. More seating equals higher earnings.

Whilst on the subject of furniture, think about investing in some handy stackable stools. Tolix stools are a good choice and suit all sorts of decors. Being available in three handy sizes and a choice of colours, there’s a stool to suit all requirements. The good thing about stackable furniture such as stools is that they can be tucked away in a corner and brought out as additional seating when required. Also you can get more stools around a table than you can chairs.

ñ  Use your outdoor space

Make better use of your outdoor space for seating customers. Your facade serves to give customers their first impression of your café so make sure it’s a good one. Having outdoor seating which can be used all year round will encourage customers who like to sit and smoke whilst watching the world go by. However, make sure your outdoor space is kept clean and tidy and that ash trays are regularly emptied and tables cleared and wiped clean. Also set up some parasols so people are protected from the sun, or invest in an awning which can be used as protection against all the elements.

ñ  Become a VIP Shopper

Cafe Solutions stocks a wide range of very affordable and versatile café furniture to suit all needs. The good news is that by joining our new VIP program which is totally free, all VIP members can receive an extra 5% discount on their shopping on order over $100.

Simply by adopting one or more of these suggestions, you should be able to increase your seating capacity and take advantage of the extra festive season traffic.

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