A Street Side Cafe Tour

Brown Sugar Cafe & Bakers   

  • Cafe, Quick bytes, Desserts & bakes 
  • Lane no.3, Raja Park, Jaipur
Image Credits - Graphite Design Studio







The Raja park area of pink city is a residential area, quite popular for it's students (lots of immigrants staying as 'paying guests'), shopping & food, especially the food. When it comes to food, it is a 'foodie's paradise'. There is a lot of street food as well as well established eateries. As it is a student inhabited colony, new eateries open up every other day. When I came to Jaipur for my design education in 2016, I was also staying as a paying guest in a nearby locality. Raja park was about 15 minute walking distance from my place and I had found this area as a hustling bustling spot for all students of my college. After all Raja park has so much to offer                  

I shifted my place in 2017 and became permanent in Raja park on rented accommodation. In those frenzy two years of my college life, I was just habituated to roam around in the bustling streets of this locality. Although now I am here in my hometown, 252 km away from Jaipur, a part of me is still there. A part of me secretly wishes to roam around those lanes, buying regular groceries, binging on street food whenever I was stressed, sipping warm tea in winters on my favorite thadi, visiting the holy gurdwara to pray for the college projects to go well....everything is being missed badly, till this day.

Anyways, this post is not about my emotional connection with this locality, It's about a cute small bakery cafe hidden in one of the lanes. Back in 2016 when I shifted to to Jaipur, this lane no.3 outlet of Brown Sugar Cafe & Bakers was a newly opened one. Brown Sugar had already established it's name with 4 other outlets in the city. So, this is the fifth one. I just visited once with a friend of mine and I found the interiors quite refreshing, quirky and nice place to hangout overall. When we had a hospitality project in second semester of college, I chose this cafe as a case study & came here again for having a closer look at the interior design. 

The area would be 500 sq.ft (approx), saying this by rough estimate, because I didn't measure anything😆. This place known for it's baked preparations, mostly their variety of cakes (Red velvet being absolute divine💖) can accommodate 15 people at a time, maximum. Despite being small, the sitting layout has been done quite smartly so one doesn't feel congested at all. The target users are family crowd and students. This is the kind of cafe which attracts the passersby from the street itself, thanks to the continuous transparent glass facade and lovely exterior design. You would feel like peeping inside from this glass facade made in square grid pattern. Exactly that is the purpose here, to reveal a warm atmosphere to the passers by. By seeing the interaction of the light & material from outside, it makes you stop by & get inside to enjoy a coffee. 

Image from top left: Credit: Graphite Design Studio
The exteriors are pretty, A small outdoor semi covered area separated from the street outside by a customized metal railing is their smoking zone which gives a french bistro like feel. This is a cumulative effect of the stripped awnings, vintage tile flooring, metal mesh chairs coupled with tables having wooden top & metal base. As I looked above I saw filament bulbs attached to metal rods over sitting area. This interesting lighting feature seemed customized and I confirmed from the owner that it actually was. Almost everything has been customized meticulously in the design, from the lighting features to the furniture and even the smallest of details such as the laser cut letters on the door handle.


Customized industrial lighting feature
The graphics on menu showing a modern world


By this time, I could get a fair idea about the style of the interiors. I was like,Voila!! this is the no nonsense, masculine industrial chic, but as I got inside the running style became more clear to me. I found out that the style is more of an eclectic blend, with modern industrial in focus, in contrast with bold vintage accessories complemented by rustic touches. The vintage industrial trend came into design a decade ago, but it has remained steadily popular since then. Designers still love something from the bygone era and they keep experimenting with it. 

While some would keep it all intact - raw, edgy, neutral, masculine, some would like to create contrasts. And modern industrial is exactly that - juxtaposition of raw with the refined & sleek & modern with vintage & classic. In fact, the complete brand identity of this cafe is modern industrial, as it becomes clear by looking at the modern cityscape graphic on the menu card. Also the branding colors in the main logo - brown & yellow. Brown giving that rugged masculine feel & bold yellow being synonymous with fun is common color in eateries, also in modern interior trend. 

Image Credits : Graphite Design Studio

Coming to the design & decoration of this cafe, it has been done with a lot of recycled & reclaimed material, which is the common feature of industrial design. Timber off cuts from local furniture makers are used to create a puzzle like ceiling & a wooden wall which make an L shape together, which actually serves as a demarcation of sitting area & service counter. Blue and white color stripes are used to highlight this feature, also creates a contrast with natural timber. The timber ceiling also has profile lighting as random inserts. The wooden panel has decorative frames which are also meant for sale. One can clearly see the most funky element from here - a blue and white scooter with headlights placed over the toilet block. This head turner scooter has been a kind of USP of design of Brown Sugar at every outlet. I mean it is there in each one of their outlet in Jaipur. While the timber false ceiling serves as a demarcation, all over the place we have dark grey exposed ceiling and exposed brick walls with slight finishing given through luxor paint. 

For Flooring, subway look alike tiles are used, rough wooden tiles in the sitting area in contrast to the same patterned vintage Spanish tiles we saw outside. These vintage ceramic tiles in L shape highlight the entry passage & entire length of the counter. This is again demarcation by the way of flooring & the flooring completely complements the wooden ceiling. Separating the entryway from the sitting area is a low customized metal railing with wooden hand rest. The entryway being highlighted with a decorative wall, which has a big open display shelf made of teak wood. On the top of open shelves there are decorative pieces also meant for selling purpose & the easily reachable lower shelves are for bread, cookie jars etc. 

The concept places the service counter at a central location in the layout because this is where the processes of the cafe's operations come together. The counter is clad in timber slats creating the natural raw effect and vintage cylinder drums light this area. The material of the carcass is timber wood with corian on counter top & an inserted long glass display shelf. The background has open straight wooden shelf display with grey linear tiles on wall, displaying an array of products. Point of sales is placed on the left of entry & the wall besides it has big bowls & frames meant for decoration as well as sale. This is obviously everywhere, the accessories are solving both the purposes.

All the furniture is customized to give the end users a warm, cozy experience. The wooden chairs have fabric finishes in bold colors. Red and cyan are used in the color scheme, I feel because this offers a strong contrast to the natural timber and the thickly painted grey doors and the outer facade. This justifies the 'modern industrial theme as the industrial color palette is not so diverse, but the bold & vibrant colors in modern interior scheme can break the monotony.The teak wood chairs,  molded to give C shape are very comfortable. The tables are beautifully handcrafted with wooden top & metal base and interestingly, food quotes are carved on the wood. The metal base has cycle paddles and these can be used to adjust the height of the table according to the customer's comfort. These tables are unique, aesthetically appealing but also functional...Great!!☺. 

Coming to the arrangement, it is such that visitors can choose to sit on the elegant bright loose chairs or if, they are a large group, like for a social gathering, they can choose to sit on the leather upholstered twin sofas. Both arrangements are giving a view of the outside, and a projector is also mounted here in the sitting area, so people can enjoy their coffee while watching live matches, thus, an engaging environment is created. 

Supporting the thematically adapted ceiling, they have eclectic lighting elements. Above the sitting area, the exposed ceiling has wooden beams suspended on which track lights are mounted (a Wow!! customized feature again). Within the store window, customized metal rod lights with filament bulbs just as we saw outside & L shape down-lights giving a warm feel that draws people inside. In combination to industrial lights the concept has antique brass lights highlighting the counter especially and one brass pendant above a small coke freezer, exuding a vintage feel & not looking too heavy on the space. 














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