Headquartered in Japan with 1,300-doughnut shop brand stores, “& Dough” is a café brand to be newly developed and is the first store to make a grand opening. Café category is a highly competing business, thus uniqueness is one of the essential elements for franchise operation. So we carried out our original questionnaire survey to the customers, which was “how the customers would select their café stores”. By using the client’s know-how and skills based on their criteria, we sorted out the data into what the competing stores could do versus what we could differentiate from the competitors. We highlighted the strength that our client could provide and we reflected them into the designs.

Taking advantage of our client’s strength, one of the first characteristic points of this café is the relation between the purchase counter and the kitchen. It is not only an open kitchen without partitions. By setting up a wall and balanced-sash-window, it enables to control the distance of customers and staff members according to cooking contents and the time of day. This counter style will make the customers’ flow even smoother. They can use the tray, take the products, go to the cash register, pick up the condiments, and go to their seats.

One other point to be mentioned about the customer seating is that we have designed this store with an eye toward a couple of years after the store opening. For example, what if the clients were to change the tables and sofas to meet the customers comfort a few years after the opening?, we thought, and worked on again with the layouts. In this way, keeping the franchise operation in mind, there might arise some alterations in the seating variations and other irregulars in the future. If we could install these in advance, we could fully utilize the opportunity. So, on the other hand, we eliminated the idea of using antique furniture and only-one item to deliberately characterize the whole store.

Besides, we devised three kinds of combination for the shelves; shelves to stock things, shelves with blinds, shelves with graphic sheets attached to the transparent glass (it will reflect the shadow to the wall by lighting effect). It means, clients would not have to buy extra items. Like these “display shelves”, these designs can be seen throughout our works that are created for franchise operation. Soon after the opening of “& Dough”, we have received numerous inquiries of offers from both at home and abroad. We are ready to meet further expectations.

Designer: Aiji Inoue , Yoshito Nakahara / DOYLE COLLECTION co. ltd.
Photographer: Satoru Umetsu / Nacasa&Partners