How to set up a coworking space in your coffee shop

Turn quiet daytime hours into a second income, without changing what the shop is.

Remote and hybrid working has settled into a routine, and for a lot of people that routine is lonely and full of distractions. Demand for somewhere social but productive to work keeps growing, and coffee shops with space to spare are well placed to meet it.

If your coffee shop has room, you already have most of what a good coworking offer needs: seats, caffeine, food and Wi-Fi. This guide walks through the steps to take paid coworking customers properly.

1. Assess demand for coworking space

Before you put time and money into setting up, find out whether people in your area would actually pay to work from your premises.

A few ways to do that:

• Search online for coworking spaces near you. If several exist, demand for this kind of space in your area is likely.

• Note how often people already work from your coffee shop. Many would pay a small fee if you gave them a more productive setup.

• Put out a comments and suggestions box with a sign asking whether customers would be interested in coworking with comfortable furniture and fast internet, and count the interest over four weeks.

• If you have a way to reach customers already, an active social account or an email list, just ask them.

Get a clear signal of interest before you commit. And do not assume that no nearby competition means an untapped market: more often than not, a lack of competition means a lack of demand.

It is also worth talking to the people already working from your shop. Ask what would make them stay longer or come more often, whether that is sockets at every seat, a quieter corner or a faster connection. Their answers shape everything that follows.

2. Designate the space

Decide which part of the shop becomes the coworking area, and how much floor space you give it.

Working people need quiet, so pick the space furthest from your noisiest areas, the grinder and the queue. If you can put a physical barrier between coworkers and the rest of the room, an upstairs area for example, all the better. It can also be worth investing in a sound system that lets you pipe music into the main room while keeping the coworking area quiet.

The space also needs to be big enough for the demand. In my experience, roughly one in five customers during working hours will be there to work, so dedicating about that share of your seating to coworking is a sensible starting point.

3. Set pricing and terms

Coworking is usually priced either as a day rate or as a monthly membership covering a set number of hours. Decide what the fee includes: are food and drinks part of it, or sold separately?

The approach that works best in a coffee shop is a monthly fee for a set number of hours, with one meal, unlimited drinks and a selection of snacks included. Fresh food and drink made on site is a real advantage over dedicated coworking spaces, whose complimentary snacks rarely match what you can produce. You may not be able to offer meeting rooms or private phone booths, but better food and drink makes you appealing to freelancers and solo workers.

Check what dedicated spaces near you charge for part-time and full-time memberships, and position yourself against them. Location drives most of the variation, so a shop in a prime city area can charge towards the top of the local range. Then experiment to find the balance between profit per head and demand.

Keep the terms simple enough to explain in one sentence at the counter. Complex pricing slows the sale down and gives your team something new to get wrong.

4. Put the infrastructure in

To compete in the coworking market you need:

• Padded, ergonomic chairs with armrests

• Tables at a proper working height

• Fast, reliable guest Wi-Fi that handles many users at once

• A quiet environment

• A way of communicating with existing customers

• Opening hours that cover the office day, ideally longer

Many coffee shops will not have the right furniture or internet for this. Invest before you open for coworking: a poor experience caused by shaky infrastructure damages your reputation and rules you out as an option for local workers before you have started.

Sockets matter as much as chairs. If people are working for hours they need to plug in, so check the space you choose has enough power for the number of desks you plan, and put the sockets where the desks go rather than along one far wall.

5. Market it properly

The best return comes from ranking for "coworking space in [your area]" on Google. Narrow it right down: "coworking space in Hackney" rather than "coworking space in London" gives you a realistic chance against little competition.

To optimise for that keyword:

• Create a dedicated page on your website describing the offer and terms, titled with your target keyword.

• Add coworking to the services and description on your Google Business Profile.

• Mention it in prominent places on your homepage.

• Sign up to any coworking directories you find.

You will not rank immediately, but following these steps should have you appearing in local searches within a couple of months.

Other channels that work:

• A sign outside the premises

• Social posts, with a request for followers to share

• Email to your existing customer list

• An advert in the local paper, which is almost always cheaper and more effective than you expect

Hybrid working has changed the daytime economy, and the part-time coworking market has room to grow. Coffee shops can enter it without changing what they are: a few tweaks to space, pricing and Wi-Fi is usually enough to compete with dedicated spaces, which are often overpriced for what they offer.

If you have the floor space, coworking is a practical way to add and diversify income.

This article was written by Oli Baise. Oli helps run the London coffee shop The Coffee Traveller and writes about the coffee industry at Drinky Coffee.