Cafe design and fitout tips

Top tips on how to plan, design and build a successful café fitout from Sydney architecture and interior design firm – The Great Indoors

• Be clear about your brief and what you would like to achieve from the project to ensure your business’s success.

• Work with your designer and shopfitter to achieve your desired look and feel within your budget range.

• Strength in partnerships in building a great team will benefit the journey in working towards a common goal. 

• Have you included within your budget the required building services, demolition, design fees and approval costs?

• Do you have a timeframe for achieving your goals, from the appointment of consultants to signing the lease, to the first day of trade? 

• Work closely with your designer and shopfitter from the very early stages of your project to build your budget. The early engagement of experts ensures professional, upfront advice.

• Set realistic goals. Is your project a complete renovation, partial refurbishment, or are you moving into a new space? 

• Do you have a brand, menu, and signage concepts ready to go, or are you looking for a new brand or a refresh? Uniforms can make a big impression on customers, as does your overall experience, communication, warm customer service, and smiles. These elements do go a long way in receiving great reviews and customers coming back time and time again.

• Building and shopfitting are complex processes that require considerable planning and time. Would you like some help with sourcing commercial kitchen equipment and furniture?

• Being knowledgeable about the approval process – Do you require landlord approval, dependent on your site project location and whether you need DA or CDC approval?

The Great Indoors team can help you build a budget for a café and restaurant fitout through our unique partnerships with commercial builders and shopfitters, and work with you to navigate the process from start to finish.

On site photography of the construction process

Eye-Catching Optometry Retail Store Design

Customer experience and brand strategy are at the heart of an alluring new optometry store in Sydney designed by The Great Indoors.

‘Details Are Beautiful’ is the motto of 1001 Optometry, an optometrist and eyewear specialist with more than a dozen stores in Melbourne and Sydney. Its latest store, an inviting space in Sydney’s Chatswood Chase shopping centre, distils that vision. Designed by Manly-based practice The Great Indoors, the store not only offers the expertise to help its customers see everything more clearly, but also places a keen focus on the details of the space itself.

Further into the store are zones for eye tests and frame fittings; this approach aims to establish a ‘visually open’ experience of visiting the optometrist.

The store’s design guides the shopping journey. As customers enter, they’re greeted with frames housed in handsome glass cases on both sides. Further into the store are zones for eye tests and frame fittings; this approach aims to establish a ‘visually open’ experience of visiting the optometrist. This ethos is cemented via the design of the optometry rooms, which are semi-private, offering a view of the testing experience and equipment. These rooms are framed by glazed walls, though curtains can be drawn for more private consultations.

Eye-catching details begin before customers even enter the store. Shopfront panels are made from fluted glass and warmly backlit, while the clarity of mirrors and glass cases is offset by Laminex timber joinery wall displays and optometry room walls. Adjustable LED lighting by Trend Lighting emphasises the space’s welcoming ambience.

The Great Indoors’ design embodies 1001 Optometry’s brand focus: foregrounding and celebrating the optometry experience and its positive impact on health and wellbeing. Customer experience, brand design and interior design were the three crucial elements of the space.

For each project, The Great Indoors takes a multi-pronged approach. While good looks and customer comfort were essential for the Chatswood store, so, too, was gaining approval throughout the process from the shopping centre’s landlord. The firm also ensured there was inbuilt durability in this high-traffic space, achieved in part by the use of Robertson’s brick floor tiles and Skheme floor tiles – elements which also establish visual interest and depth.

The Great Indoors’ sophisticated approach has cemented its position as a leader in retail, hospitality and office design.

Since its founding in 2013, The Great Indoors has blended creativity with strategic and commercial priorities. Its sophisticated approach – beginning with freehand sketches of a space, followed by an extensive analysis of customer priorities and underscored by a commitment to deadlines and budgets – has cemented its position as a leader in retail, hospitality and office design.

1001 Optometry Chatswood Chase is a key example of the practice’s ability to balance client needs while embracing a brand’s vernacular within an eye-catching space.

Story by retail interior design experts - The Great Indoors

Excerpt from The Local Project

Y3 Retail Store Design in Sydney

Now Open: Adidas x Yohji Yamamoto Collab Y-3 Gets a Debut Australian Flagship Store

Pioneering streetwear label Y-3 now has a dedicated Sydney shopfront. Find understated Japanese style in sporty suiting and luxe activewear alongside basics, jackets and footwear.

Caroline Ball first encountered Y-3, the permanent collaboration between Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto and German sportswear giant Adidas, after a big night out in Berlin.

“I was in a very moodily lit boutique on a freezing cold morning in Berlin before consuming the best morning-after sandwich I’ve ever eaten,” she laughs.

“It was mind-blowing to me. Y-3 is the brand that invented the category of streetwear – it’s weird for our generation to imagine a time when it didn’t exist."

Now Ball, known for her fashion concept store Sorry Thanks I Love You, has brought Y-3 to Australia with the opening of a flagship store in Westfield Sydney in the CBD.

“Y-3 is very original in that it blends Adidas’s sports heritage, high-performance fabrics and manufacturing capabilities with Yohji’s elegant iconic silhouettes and tailoring,” Ball says.

The new Sydney store, launched on March 1, carries all five categories within the collection: tailoring (jackets and suiting), performance (sportswear), outerwear (jackets and weatherproof pieces), core pieces (cotton basics designed for layering) and footwear and accessories.

“Each piece is an experiment in seeing a fashion garment through a sporting lens, or vice versa. I think the size of the collection and the longevity of this partnership is testament to the brand’s experience bringing Yohji’s craftsmanship together with Adidas’s high-tech prowess,” Ball says.

Store design is in line with a new “art gallery meets sporting arena” concept the brand launched late in 2022 for its outlets around the world.

Portuguese cork columns, discs of mottled blue recycled plastics, recycled rainbow-flecked rubber and custom-fabricated brushed stainless-steel racking are among the elements of the fit-out, which also features an old-school projector.

“My personal favourites are the stools made from layers of granite, pink and blue recycled plastics and spongy black rubber, like giant liquorice allsorts, and curvy joinery inspired by playgrounds and gym equipment,” Ball says.

Inside the shop you’ll find the new Y-3 collection Chapter One, which features plenty of archival pieces in celebration of the label’s 20th anniversary, with Chapter Two arriving in early April.

“Anyone who has come across Y-3 will know that its production is of the highest level, and the brand itself is all about understated style. There are secret pockets-in-pockets, lots of very subtle black-on-black motifs, and even tiny QR codes on inner care instruction labels.”

It’s that relaxed and functional aesthetic that Ball is banking on when it comes to the local market. “The lightweight, high-performance fabrics are perfect for our climate and the fact that these pieces are so comfortable and easy to care for makes them really great everyday pieces. A modern uniform for the streets.”

Ball says she’s long had her eye on Y-3, and when the opportunity came to partner with the brand she founded the company Y-3 Australia and New Zealand, amassed a local team, and jumped on it.

“Our partnership with Y-3 encompasses both countries, and we’re very excited to be opening in other locations across both countries, with Melbourne being the next city,” Ball says.

Excerpt from Broadsheet

Fuel and Convenience Design Sydney

Story by retail and supermarket interior design expert - The Great Indoors

Jack & Co is one stop shop for your fuel, food and convenience needs, it’s also a bakery and barista coffee offer. Jack and co is no ordinary petrol station, it feels and looks more like a cool café. Since the opening of the store design and new brand refresh there has been a real uptick in sales – 

'The new refreshed stores at last count have seen an increase in sales of up to 30%'

We have been working with Jack and Co's team and progressing the brand & architecture components to ensure the new brand refresh can be successfully applied to number of existing key sites in Sydney's (Northwood & Pymble) & Regional NSW Taree. New updates have been created across a number of touch points including new product ranges, staff uniforms, menus, packaging, interior design, architecture & signage elements. 

Convenience food, grab and go, barista made coffee, daily grocery essentials and fuel can happily co-exist under the same roof. 

The new retail strategy is a standout within this category as it feels boutique and welcoming with a great new healthy product range and made on site products for the bakery, sausage rolls and pies. The standard petrol station model of fumes, security screens across the counter have been removed and stick sugary sweets and drinks have all been removed or reflected to the back of the store.

The project was a partnership between The Great Indoors (Architecture & Interior Design) & Alabaster (Brand design, signage & packaging.

The photography shows the before & after, the design makeover the store of applying a new canvas to an existing building, The Great Indoors has transformed the site at a reduced cost and faster program of works rather than progressing with a new building, saving money and time by working with the client to deliverable a new concept without breaking the budget.

Text by Lee Hopkinson

Optometry Retail Design in Sydney

Story by Retail Interior Design experts - The Great Indoors

Eyewear retailer 1001 Optometry is refurbishing 25 to 30 stores located in shopping centres, implementing the brand’s “Details are Beautiful” strategy.

The company tapped The Great Indoors interior designer Gesa Hopkinson for the refurbishment, which features glazed walls to allow guests to view the optometry equipment and testing rooms.

The interior’s design elements include oak timber walls, adjustable LED lighting, and closable curtains for customers who opt for private consultations.

“Overall, the key focus is to elevate the optometry process and create transparency and views into the optometry equipment and testing rooms so that the store design visually indicates more about the retail and service design experience (elevating the key service of optometry) rather than hiding the optometry rooms and the process behind walls,” said Hopkinson.

The company says materials were sourced from commercial suppliers engaged in “sensible and environmentally focused operations”.

Source: Excerpt from Inside Retail article.

Cafe Design Sydney

Story by Cafe Interior Design experts - The Great Indoors

Life Grain Café at Prince of Wales Randwick – Shortlisted for Best Hospitality Grab N Go Sydney Design Awards 2025

Life Grain has a direct connection with food that originates from the earth, which is directly connected through the application of strategic biophilic design principles. The design focuses on material colours that connect with the brand palette of Life Grain, indoor plants are used to connect with nature, warm timbers are used for the horizontal planting boxes behind the counter, wall claddings, and counter front finishes. 

There is a deeper connection to the earth and nature through the use of the warmer materials and earthy tones; studies indicate that the use of timber within the built environment significantly positively affects our well-being. 
The hospital environment can be challenging and stressful. The cafe has been designed with this in mind to bring peace, tranquillity and a welcome break for staff, patients & visitors. The project celebrates the client's desire, Life Grain, to vastly improve the quality of food served within the hospital network.

Excerpt from Driven by Design Awards