5 Questions About Your Cafe's Customers to Help You Determine Whether to Add Booths
Booths are more commonly seen in diners and restaurants, but they can also make a great addition to your café. Of course, that really depends on whether your customers are going to make adequate use of them. To determine whether booths might be a good idea, try asking yourself the following five questions about your customers.
1. Singles or Groups?
The most obvious question is also the most important; do your customers tend to visit in larger groups or in ones and twos? If it's the former, a couple of booths might be appreciated since they provide a more closed-off and personal space in which groups can relax and have a quick drink and bite to eat. However, having just one or two customers taking up a whole booth represents poor use of your café's real estate.
2. Frequent Eaters?
Sometimes you'll find that customers visit your café for lunch just as much as they visit in order to grab a coffee. Diners naturally like a little more space and comfort while they eat, so offering a booth will cater to their needs.
3. Stay-all-Day or Grab and Go?
Some cafés find that most of their customers arrive, place an order, and then make off without even sitting down. This is usually the case if you're in a busy commuting area. Such customers aren't going to need whole booths to sit down in; unless your core customer group prefers to sit around for a while to enjoy their refreshments and relax, booths are likely to be overkill.
4. Family Hotspot?
While you're considering how many groups come into your café, take the time to note how many of those groups are families. A whole family, particularly ones with young children, usually prefer to take a booth to themselves; aside from the added space, it puts them in mind of family-focused restaurants. You might find yourself attracting this particular type of customer if your café is close to tourist attractions. Make sure you cater to their needs.
5. Working or Chatting?
If your café is close to a business district, it's likely that many of your customers will be office workers. What you need to consider is whether they tend to come to your café to relax or to keep working. If you frequently see a group of people come in to sit down only to start laying out documents and opening laptops, you might find that the additional table space offered by a booth will be appreciated.
By asking yourself all five of the questions above, you should end up with a pretty good idea of whether your café would benefit from a couple of booths.