papermail coffee

designing an (imaginary) space where y'all come for a drink and stay to hang around awhile.❣️

I’ve always dreamed of designing a small coffee shop or tea room, so I decided to go about doing just that through this post. This was so fun to put together, I hope you enjoy reading about this (imaginary) shop, papermail coffee!

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happenings

Inside papermail coffee, there is a large events room towards the back, filled with tables and a small stage. Here are some of the events I had in mind:

• Poetry reading | Monday at 7pm

• Writing club | Tuesday at 6 pm

• Open Mic Night | Thursday at 7pm

• Afternoon Tea | Saturday 2-6pm

I usually only see afternoon tea being offered at really upscale restaurants, but I think it would be a perfect coffee shop event. I’d love to dress up a little fancier to head over to my favorite café, and have a slow afternoon nibbling on some delicious pastries. I’d invite friends, or take a book!

This room is also available to local organizations to reserve and host their own events in. And when there’s nothing going on, it’s open seating for coffee shop guests!

seating

Guests are encouraged to come and stay a while, so there are plenty of comfortable chairs and couches. The stools all have tall backs and wooden furniture has that worn in feeling for extra comfort. Outside, there are picnic tables with large foldable umbrellas and patio heaters for year round use.

decor & a postcard wall

One of the walls of the shop displays postcards written and sent by guests. There will be a little postcard station with vintage and new postcards that folks can choose from and leave notes about themselves, their day, or their travels.

We rotate the postcards hung up on the wall so there’s always some new and old for folks to look at. There are fairy lights hanging inside and outside, that only light up in the night time. The show has floor to ceiling windows which let in lots of sunlight, and plants are scattered throughout the shop.

playlist

menu

We have coffee, tea, matcha, all the good stuff. There are seasonal drinks that rotate through the year, and this season’s specialty drink is a strawberry cardamom oat latte.

We serve pastries from local partner bakeries that are made fresh every morning. The menu also always has a sandwich and salad of the day (vegan and vegetarian options included), because my pet peeve is having to leave a morning or afternoon I’m spending at coffee shop for a meal.

There will be no single use plastics, to purchase a drink for the go, folks must bring their own to-go cups.

shop

I love going through the shop area when waiting in line to order coffee, and I really appreciate a good selection of trinkets! At papermail coffee, there are postcards for sale (I thought of the title for my mini zine, postcards from the café, when I saw postcards for sale at a local coffee shop. I wanted the posts I put together about day to day happenings and give off a homey vibe—reminding me to honor the every day moments in life.) We also have planners and notebooks, Fellow to-go cups, oversized hoodies, and a variety of single origin beans!

And well, that’s what I have so far! I had so much fun putting this together. I was inspired to make this post after reading Dazy’s Dinner Party—I was writing down the details of a dinner party I hosted last fall, and I started thinking of all the other things I could imagine and make mood boards about. What a wonderful idea by Dazy, to bring physical events and spaces to life on this platform!