Shook Cyber CoffeeCafé fit-out design · Kingsford
Shook Cyber Coffee is a café fit-out in Kingsford, Sydney. It is part of the Shook franchise, reworked with a darker, industrial identity: deep green, black and concrete tones, stainless-steel furniture and green illuminated signage. It reads as Shook without repeating the earlier Shook café design. The café is complete.
Key facts
- Type
- Café (part of the Shook franchise)
- Suburb
- Kingsford, Sydney
- Services
- Interior design
- Status
- Completed
- Special features
- Green illuminated signage
- Stainless-steel furniture
- Concrete-toned finishes
- Industrial metal seating and benches
The brief
Shook Cyber Coffee belongs to the Shook franchise, the same brand as the Shook Cafe we designed in Waterloo, but it needed a character of its own. The brief combined practical food and coffee service with a strong visual identity, so the new café would stand apart from the one in Waterloo and still belong to the brand.
What we decided, and why
We took the brand darker and more industrial. Deep green, black, concrete-toned finishes and stainless-steel furniture create a raw, slightly futuristic cyber atmosphere. Metal seating and benches continue right through to the shopfront, and green illuminated features and signage stand out sharply against the darker interior.
By the window, the Shook signage sits in the glazing, a green mascot neon and a Cyber sign hang above the counter, and metal stools stand on a concrete floor. The palette is restrained, so the green branding does most of the work.
The result is a cohesive industrial café that feels edgy and contemporary, and is still recognisably Shook.
The finished project
Shook Cyber Coffee in pictures
Shook, taken darker: the finished Kingsford café in black, concrete and green neon.
2 pictures · completed · select any picture to see it full screen
By the window · 01 / 02
What a second café for the same brand involves
Opening another site for an existing café brand is quicker in some ways and harder in others.
Quicker, because the menu, equipment list and service style are known. The counter and kitchen can be planned from real numbers: how many coffees at the peak, how much cold storage, which machines.
Harder, because every tenancy starts again on approvals. A consent belongs to the premises, not to the brand. If the new tenancy wasn't approved for food, turning it into a café generally needs a development application or a complying development certificate. The fit-out has to meet the Food Standards Code's premises standard, with AS 4674 usually a condition of consent, Sydney Water has to approve a grease trap before it's installed, and the business must notify council before it trades.
The design question is identity. A brand that copies itself site after site can start to look tired; one that changes everything stops being recognisable. Decide what is fixed (name, logo, signature graphics, the way customers order) and what can change (colour, materials, lighting, mood), then let each site shape the rest.
Check the tenancy for the brand's practical needs before signing: an exhaust route, power for the coffee machines and grinders, and space for hand basins within 5 metres of every food-handling point.
Questions about projects like this
If the last tenant was a café, can I just move in?
Not automatically. The development consent belongs to the premises, so check it before you sign: it may limit hours, seats or the type of food business. The City of Sydney, for example, tells anyone taking on an existing food business to make sure they have the appropriate consent. You also need to notify your own food business details; the NSW Food Authority notes that if you buy an existing business, you notify again with your details.
How much should a second site look like the first?
Enough that a regular customer recognises it within seconds, and no more. Keep the elements that carry the brand, such as the name, logo and bold illuminated branding, and let materials and lighting respond to the new tenancy. Shook Cyber Coffee keeps the Shook name and illuminated signage, but swaps the Waterloo café's blue and light concrete for deep green, black and stainless steel.
Start a project like this
Guides for this kind of project
Tell us what you are planning. In a free 15-minute call we will tell you honestly whether we are the right fit, what the approval route looks like and what the sensible next step is.
