Cafe Uniforms

We've become a café society. There are nearly as many cafés in the UK as pubs now, and it's a competitive business, as more than half of them are small independent outlets rather than chains or franchise operations. Everybody from schoolchildren to grandparents goes to cafes – they host thousands of business meetings every day and start hundreds of thousands of romances. To hang onto customers and gain new ones, a café needs to provide great food and drink with superlative service, and a uniform is an essential part of getting that service right. Whether you're an American themed diner or a classic Italian coffee bar, the way you dress your staff tells those walking past your windows what to expect when they come inside. And that's what turns casual passers-by into customers.

Café uniform secrets

One way to distinguish your café staff from the crowd is to pick unusual uniforms for them to wear. Printed aprons are fun, easy to launder and give a crisp appearance to your team, while T-shirts with bright and witty logos, like these from Chelsea Bun, create a relaxed happy environment for customers. There's no limit to what you can achieve with a café uniform: taking your staff from casual in the day to white shirts in the evening can signal a change of menu from laid-back coffee through to up-scale dining, or giving your team embroidered caps in summer creates an entirely different vibe that can sell lots of ice-cream, smoothies or cookies.