A well-designed café creates a welcoming space in any garden centre where people want to bring friends and family, spend time, and fully enjoy their visit.
Creating the menu for your garden centre’s coffee shop is about so much more than simply picking a few popular drinks. To get it right, especially in a setting where the café can account for up to 30% of your garden centre’s revenue, you need to understand your customers and what they enjoy.
A well-thought-out menu features a stable of regular drinks perfectly crafted to your regular guests whilst also introducing speciality, seasonal, or guest coffees throughout the year.
This article will help you understand how to craft a drinks menu that not only satisfies but also keeps your customers coming back to your garden centre cafe for more.
Guide to Designing a Garden Centre’s Coffee Menu
Mapping Out your Menu
When designing your drinks menu, start by thinking about what you want to offer. A good mix of choices caters to different preferences and adds variety to your café.
Espresso-Based Drinks
Espressos, Americanos, Lattes, Cappuccinos, and Flat Whites provide a solid foundation and satisfy most customer expectations.
However, don’t stop there. Espresso based drinks can take many other forms such as a cortado, macchiato or long black. Consider your choices carefully, as crowding the menu can make for a confusing ordering experience.
Filter coffee is also a popular option brewed using a separate filter coffee machine. Its simplicity in brewing makes for speedy and consistent cups, with high quality coffee grounds helping you serve specialty level brews as a grab and go option, or for those that want something extra hot.
Extras are crucial
Today’s customers often expect options like decaf coffee, a range of flavoured syrups, and alternative milks, including oat, almond, and soy. Iced drinks, especially in the summer months, can also boost sales. Don’t overlook the power of a good tea selection, either, as it can broaden your appeal to non-coffee drinkers.
Example Garden Centre Hot Drinks Menu
Coffee
- Double Espresso
- Macchiato
- Flat White
- Cappuccino
- Latte
- Americano
- Filter Coffee
- Chocolate Mocha
Teas
- English Breakfast Tea
- Earl Grey Tea
- Mint Tea
- Green Tea
- Matcha
Other Hot Drinks
- Hot Chocolate
- Chai Latte
- Turmeric / Beetroot Specialty Latte
The Coffee Beans
If you want to cater to a broader audience, consider the beans you use.
Whilst a light roast provides sweeter fruity notes and a dark roast has more of a traditional bitter chocolatey flavour, a medium roast coffee typically has the widest appeal with balanced sweetness and flavours of caramels and fruits.
Selecting from a single origin can be a difficult choice, with coffees from Brazil tasting traditionally nutty and chocolatey, whilst Ethiopians can be more floral. To gain mass appeal, a blend of coffees from multiple origins can be perfectly tweaked to cater for your target audience.
Offering different types of beans can also be a great choice – perhaps rotating them seasonally to keep something new always on offer. However, a majority of your regular customers will want access to the same coffee each time they visit and may be upset if it becomes no longer available.
Having access to multiple grinders allows you to serve one tried and true espresso blend whilst your second hopper can be used for seasonal origins and decaf alternatives to appeal to every coffee drinker alongside your every day blend.
Matching your Menu to your Business Goals and Objectives
Your drinks menu should align with your business goals and your target customer base. Customer insights and research are invaluable here.
If your garden centre café attracts adventurous drinkers, you have the opportunity to mix things up. These customers might appreciate seasonal rotations, guest beans, or experimenting with bolder, more unusual flavours. For a more casual crowd, it’s better to focus on a consistent, crowd-pleasing offering with simple, reliable options.
Do you want your coffee to reflect your own brand? If so, consider offering a white-label coffee. This approach allows you to serve coffee with your branding, giving your café a unique edge and creating a more cohesive customer experience.
Adapting your Menu
It’s important to keep your menu fresh and engaging.
Planning in seasonal drinks can help capture the latest trends and give regular customers something new to try. Think of autumn-themed spiced lattes or refreshing cold brews in summer.
With an annual calendar of seasonal drinks to keep your customers engaged throughout the year, you can tap into the latest drink trends, holiday themes, and boost coffee drink sales through the summer months with specialty iced drinks.
Planning in Food Options
Your food offering should complement your drinks and match the kind of experience you’re trying to create.
If your café aims to attract a grab-and-go crowd, focus on simple, quick options like pastries, muffins, and pre-packaged snacks. On the other hand, if you envision your café as a place where people linger and soak in the atmosphere, consider offering a more extensive menu.
Think light lunches, sandwiches, or even an afternoon tea spread.
Designing a well-balanced drinks menu, along with thoughtful food pairings, can transform your café into a revenue-driving destination within your garden centre. Get it right, and you’ll create a memorable experience that keeps customers coming back for more.
Examples of our Favourite Coffee Shop Menus
New Ground Coffee
This is a great example of crafting your menu with your target audience in mind, from @NewGroundCoffee. With just 3 items on the menu, all of which relate to coffee, this menu states loud and clear who this business is and what it is that they do best: great coffee.
This particular menu is placing trust in the customer to know exactly what they want to order and how they want it prepared. Fancy a latte? That’s white. Just an espresso? £2.60 please.
The menu is simply acting as a price guide and handing the reins over to the customer in what they want to order.
Notcutt’s Garden Centres
This example from Notcutts Garden centres is a fantastic case study for building a menu that appeals to your target market and helps speed up service.
With a demographic that skews towards the elderly, and coffee shops that are often very busy during peak times, this garden centre coffee menu helps speed up service and provide clarity on what is offered by keeping things clear, simple, and offering little in the way of customisation.
Start Building your Coffee Experience
Designing a drinks menu for your garden centre café is about more than just satisfying immediate tastes; it’s about creating an experience that encourages visitors to return time and again.
At Bridge Coffee Roasters, we understand the importance of getting it right. With our consultative service, we work closely with brands to develop exciting coffee experiences that resonate with their customers.
From sourcing exceptional beans and creating bespoke blends to offering tailored advice on equipment and menu design, we’re here to help your café become a standout feature of your garden centre—one that keeps customers coming back for more.
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