New Venture Launch

Opening a café in a public library

“After the pandemic, it became clear that the Library should not be operating a café but should focus its staffing efforts to library services...”

Summary

For seven months, from bid to grand opening, I partnered with a San Leandro baker and small business owner to open the first privately run café at our city public library. Come visit the café!

When the café was run by the library, it ran a deficit and had closed for several years. I supported the business’ public bidding process, financial forecasting, physical space planning and interior design, and implementation of the café concept.

It was so refreshing to work on a real-world service for the public benefit. I would love to do more of this kind of work in the future.

Bakery owner and operations manager helping guests at the register of the new cafe on grand opening day

My contributions:

Edited strategic communications to win a successful public bidding and approval process with Library staff and City Council.
Led market research to learn from other library café concepts.
Iteratively drafted floor plan approved by the county environmental health inspector to bring the space up to code for operating a food service at the library.
Integrated ADA compliance and digital accessibility practices into the physical space and website to make it a welcoming environment for the public.
Coordinated production of custom logo and art signage for windows, aligned to the brand’s aesthetic.
Procured wholesale restaurant furniture in alignment with an ADA-compliant floor plan.
Created sales forecasting models to support business planning and financial loan applications.
Stood up project management systems.
Providing advising and moral support to mitigate risks with launching a new business.

Research and planning

Conducted market research with 4 library cafés

Notes from visiting and speaking with owners at two library cafes: Prologue Tea and Jammin Crepes. The notes include photos

Set up project management tools

Created sales projections models

Iterative physical and digital prototyping

Prototyped the floor plan in the physical space

LB walking around the cafe with blue tape, prototyping the space by placing tape on the ground.

Collaborated on early paper and digital floor plans

Google slides version of floor plan where business owner could add their own elements to design the space

Drafted final floor plan for marketing and inspections

Figma floor plan that ultimately served as my autocad

Accessibility considerations

To make the menu more accessible, I created an menu NFC tap card instead of a QR code and provided an accompanying standard operating procedure

Created additional equipment schedules and maps to address changes for county environmental health permitting and ADA compliance

Signage production

Working with cafe staff, library staff, marketing firm, city public works, a local artist, and a signage company to produce and install decal signage.