We love the new TikTok trend of turning your house or apartment into a popup coffee shop for the day for your friends and family. A coffee house themed party is such a fun way to host and serve some great drinks and sweets. A cafe at home is less formal and more fun than a dinner party.
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How fun is it to play store at home with all your besties? We love how playful this cafe pop up trend is and felt it was so much fun to play shopkeeper, but also fun for our friends to play customer, but without having to pay. It was such a fun experience for all of us.
Why We Loved Our Free At-Home Cafe
- Everyone we know loves a good coffee.
- We love an excuse to bake lots of homemade desserts (but you can also buy them if you prefer).
- It's a more casual way to entertain.
- Open house style timing meant we could spend more time with our individual guests as they came and went at different times.
- It's cheaper than cooking a full meal and providing alcohol for so many people.
- It's less of a time commitment for guests, since most stayed for an hour or so.
- All the baked goods were make ahead, so all we had to do at the party was make the coffee.
- It's very family friendly. Kids would love it. Teens love it. Everyone loves it.
We chose to make our cafe at home free, some people like to include a pay what you can, or a tip jar to help recover some of the costs of ingredients. You can do whatever works best for your budget and friend group. It's a great idea to state it right on your invitation so that guests know what to expect and can bring some cash if need be.
Choosing Your Time and Day
We ran our coffee shop experience like a drop-in, inviting our friends to stop by anytime between 1-4 on Saturday.
We think a weekend is best.
We put a sign on the door, asking guests to come right in so we won't have to answer the door. More on our custom signs below.
We invited a large group of people for an open house style event. You can also use this idea for a smaller group of friends and have a set start time.
We opened our shop in the afternoon, but the morning is also a great option too. Morning is especially good if you want to offer some savoury options, like a breakfast sandwich, or breakfast pastries.
We kept ours simple with just desserts, so the afternoon was perfect. It also gave us a little more time in the morning to set up and finish baking. Do keep your menu desires in mind when you set the time.
Coffee Shop Logo and Signs
We called our at-home coffee shop "Our House Cafe". and then hummed "Our house is very, very, very fine house" by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young over and over in our heads every time we thought about it -sorry not sorry. We liked this name and that it was kind of self-explanatory to our friends when they saw the invitation.
Naming the shop also gave me an excuse to make a cute little logo to use on our cups and signs. We put together our simple logo in Canva.
This is totally optional, but it does help make your cafe at home feel a little more like a real coffee shop. And our guests loved this little detail.
Free Printables
We made some free coffee shop printables with the logo for our cafe at home menu, signs, cups and labels. Sign up below for free instant access to them in our Free Resource Library. We've included some blank options, where you can fill in your own shop hours, and menu using a marker.
We used our logo to make a sign for our front door inviting our friends to come straight in.
We also made some menus for the drinks. It helps give your customers/guests an idea of what's on offer so they can choose from all the options.
Tip: Handmade signs are great too. Think brown paper and a Sharpie for a real coffee shop look. Or use a chalkboard to write your menu.
We also printed some mini logos to add to our cups.
Lots of people like to use take out cups for an at home coffee shop. If you don't have enough cups, this is a great option.
We loved the idea of using real cups because it creates less garbage, and is more environmentally friendly. We also didn't really want our friends to take them "to go" since we wanted to hang out with them and chat.
If you are using to-go cups, print your logo onto sticker sheets as an easy way to add it to cups. We didn't want to deal with stickers on your real coffee cups, so I printed the logo onto copy paper and used a simple glue stick to glue them to the cups. These hold really well, but wash off much easier than removing stickers.
You could also add your logo to little paper bags for baked goods. We decided to use real plates. You'll also need some napkins.
At Home Cafe Supplies:
You're going to need a few things to set up your at-home coffee shop:
- cups -hot and cold
- sticker logos for cups (optional)
- straws
- napkins
- plates
- menus
- good coffee (don't forget decaf)
- tea (have some decaf options here too)
- sugar/sweetener
- cream/milk/almond milk/oat milk
- ice
- baked goods
- optional: take out boxes for baked goods
Keep in mind your guest list and their preferences if you know them. You may need some vegan, gluten-free, nut-free, sugar-free options.
We liked using our regular dishes, but if you don't have enough, or prefer look for disposable options.
Coffee
Coffee is the real star of the show for your at-home coffee shop. You will want to offer a few options.
We used our Nespresso machine and stocked up on pods beforehand. We also had some flavoured syrups, and a variety of creamer options, like cream, milk, almond milk and oat milk. We actually forgot decaf coffee, which a few of our guests asked for, so learn from our mistake and be sure to have some on hand.
We also offered some iced coffee options for our coffee shop at home. For this option make sure you have glasses for cold drinks too, and ice on hand.
I also made a crock pot of hot chocolate. We were hosting around Valentine's Day and I thought it would be cute to offer a hot chocolate with pink whipped cream and sprinkles. I served this in vintage tea cups. It was easy to serve since I made a big batch in the crockpot and made the whipped cream ahead of time. This would be a really great idea to include if you have kids attending too.
Some people might feel overwhelmed by all the options so having a few "specials" on the home coffee shop menu, like our Valentine's Day hot chocolate gives them an easy place to start. And if you run out of your special because it's so popular, just write "sold out" over it on the menu cards or sign.
Don't worry about having to be a real barista and make great latte art or real coffee house coffee at home. Just offer at least 4 options of drinks that are yummy and your friends will love it.
We also had some tea on offer for the tea drinkers.
Baked Goods
One of our favourite parts was all the sweet treats. We made all our options from scratch, but you can buy them at your favourite bakery, or do a combination of homemade and store-bought items.
You don't need too many options. We think four is just about perfect.
Try and include at least one thing that is chocolate for the chocolate lovers, and something kind of vanilla for those non-chocolate people. Something fruity is also a good idea to include.
Here's what we included:
- Cake
- Cookies
- Donuts
- Brownies
- At least one vegan and gluten free option
We wanted a variety of items so we made a cake, which we served by the slice.
There were also cookies, Try and make them big -coffee shop style.
We also made some homemade donuts -check out our homemade honey cruller recipe here. Our cafe was in the afternoon, so I made them and fried them in the morning. These were such a hit and really felt special.
We also had a few guests who were vegan and gluten-free and I wanted at least one homemade treat for them, so we made a little chocolate bark with peanut butter, dried fruit, and Valentine's sprinkles.
And last but certainly not least we made some brownies.
These were a good combination of items that could be made ahead and things that needed to be made the day of. For the cookies, we made some the day before, and for one we made the cookie dough the day before and then baked them the morning off -which made the house smell amazing!
We made quite a few options and did have leftovers. We had some takeaway boxes for friends to easily take some home with them. Little paper bags work well for this too.
Set-Up
We had our free printable sign on the door asking guests to come in, and we were in our kitchen serving. We had our menus on the dining room table and in the living room so guests could look at it, and then make their way to the kitchen to order. Some people like to make an "Order Here" sign to make it more clear, just like a real coffee shop.
We set up our drinks on the kitchen counter and made them ourselves. I covered serving the tea and hot chocolate and my daughter made all the coffee drinks. Enlisting the help of a teenager, if you have one, is great.
We set up the baked goods on the kitchen table with labels, on different cake stands, with serving pieces, plates and napkins. If we weren't busy making drinks we could serve them, but if we were our guests could help themselves.
Music
Don't forget to put on a coffee house inspired playlist to help set the atmosphere.
Our coffee shop at home was so much fun. We really enjoyed hosting it and our guests had a great time attending too.
I love the idea of hosting it a few times a year, with different seasonal treats each time. Our Valentine's Day themed at home coffee shop was great. It would be really fun to do one for Christmas, fall and spring too.
More Entertaining Inspiration
If you tried this Cafe at home or any other party on my blog please let me know how it went in the comments below. Thanks for visiting today!
Frequently Asked Questions:
Feel free to have some other options like tea, hot chocolate or cold drinks for those non-coffee drinkers.
Yes! You don't have to make all your baked goods -or any from scratch. Feel free to pick them up at your favourite bakery. Or do semi-homemade with something like a cake mix, or premade cookie dough that you bake at home.
If you need some help covering the costs, but you are not comfortable charging your friends, consider placing out a tip jar. Use some paper to write tips, and toss in a few bucks. Your friends will likely get the hint that it's expensive to host a party like this and drop in some money. This is a playful way to hint that you could use some help covering the costs of the ingredients.
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