The New Natural Store and Cafe

A small wholefood store in Falmouth on a small side street had successfully earned its time to expand. An opportunity arose for the owner to buy a three-story building in the centre of the town which overlooked the harbour. Spread across three floors, the building had previously been Burger King and then a British Heart Foundation furniture shop.

I approached the owner, Paul, to see if he had anyone to help design the transition. He had not.

As a regular customer I knew the shop and its character. It had endured where many small businesses had failed, it had a loyal clientele who valued its personal corner-store feeling, stuffed to the gills with a diverse stock of alternative global origin whole foods. The interior was shabby but the essence was country store with wood floors and wooden counters. Its most impressive feature was a floor to ceiling wall of shelves, with jars of every conceivable herb and spice.

An old farmhouse table is a the focal point of seasonal offerings: the staff of mostly art students enjoy creating the display.

In contract, the shop’s new interior was a clinical white; a fluorescent-lit blank slate.

I knew at all costs we had to preserve its character, to contrive the ‘warmth’ of the old shop, and make the new space look like it had stood there for as long as the old one.

I needed to help Paul see what it could be like if we didn’t contrive the warmth and age: I created two story boards to show research of other whole food shops that had failed to keep their personal cosiness, and then other examples where it had been successfully retained. I emphasised where I felt the most impact would be felt, and the most important aspects to invest in.

The front of the store was key: previously the shop had been a random blue and red. I thought we could reinvent the brand by going overtly green. I sourced many images of beautiful old green painted shop fronts from France, where time has curiously stood still, for inspiration of naturally elegant features. Lettering was key.

The building was new but in the old Georgian style, so it was easy to emphasise the feeling of elegant age.

Paul invested impressively in the skill of a local sign writer: I designed the artwork on the main fascia board and the gilt lettering on the window added to the eminence of the shop and its long-standing legacy.

We took the rich green colour inside and played with different hues to demark the sections of the store.

We wanted to play down the corridor-like depth of the space and take the customers on a journey. With a large fresh organic vegetable display opposite an old-style deli counter and zig zag wooden display units breaking up the large floor space.

With deep green glazed tile and matching green enamel low-hung factory lights from a local antique shop, we opened for business November 2017.

It was important that we repeat the bank of shelves behind a new longer wooden counter with the impressive jars of herbs and spices. The signwriter worked her magic inside and we added some useful chalk board cupboards in the deli for take away packaging.

We commissioned a local metalworker to custom-make the heavy brackets for the window bar, so that the wooden bar appeared to float in the window and didn’t clutter or block the natural light. Customers could perch and look out over the harbour with their smoothies.

The cafe was phase two on the second floor. We had already installed the commercial kitchen on the top floor and designed its space to accommodate room and equipment for a brand new whole food cafe business.

There was much anxious debate as to how much valuable shop space it could risk occupying. At the last minute and after a presentation of visual renders and floor plans, Paul was reassured that if we were to commit to the cafe project it had to look confident and be the larger space. We had the best four large Georgian floor-to-ceiling windows with a view out over the harbour on the second floor: it was one of the best in town and couldn’t be ignored. But how to still fit what had previously been a separate and profitable supplements shop with an unknown new cafe business on one single floor?

My first thought was the view was gold: every table had to have access to that. We also had to consider stock space for the supplements: the old shop had been crammed with back stock, but here we had the opportunity here to design the back stock space. A puzzle of a challenge.

I came up with an idea that solved both these problems. If we wrapped a whole banquet around the wall area we could also create a lot of storage to hold the back stock which we didn’t have room for in the rest of the shop - under the seating. This would mean all the seating would face into the cafe and have access to the view, and feel really inclusive, even if you were sat on your own in a corner. The ceiling was very low, so lighting was very important to get right. We decided on three levels: highlight shelf glow behind the counter, angle spots on a track that could be adjusted and moved to create shadow and light to highlight art on the wall (it had to feel quiet cosy and a refuge from the busy shop). I found a string of three small metal pendant lights in a sale which we separated using vintage cotton wiring. Each highlighted a window. We found a larger one in a charity shop which we sprayed a sympathetic colour. The owner had bought ten (!) jaded 80s steel-legged pedestal tables with varnished pine tops. I was at a loss as I had at the least envisioned cast iron legs with heavy wood tops. Luckily an idea came to my rescue. We were custom-building the cafe counter using a birch wood: if we bought more we could replace all the yellow varnish veneered tops with solid wood and reconnect a warm cohesive look throughout. The legs would become secondary as we found some vintage chairs and commissioned a banquet cushion in russet orange mock leather and painted the banquet and counter a rich loden green.

The Great Western railway Poster for Fowey Cornwall

We painted the walls a soft apple and pale pink; I took the colour palette from an old poster advertising Cornwall from the railway heydays, with soft colours of green and random pastels. I peppered brighter versions of these throughout in velvet and linen cushions and covered stools. A large black wall became a menu, dividing the supplements shop from the cafe and giving them extra shelf space. Over time the posters of local illustrators and Extinction Rebellion have become wall art favourites. A high shelf running the length of the room is covered in plants.

It’s a loved haunt to cocoon in, especially when the rain is lashing down over the harbour. The budget was not huge, which meant there was a lot of adapting, searching for second hand, reusing, remodelling, and resourceful thinking.