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 residential, quite popular for its 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 also stayed as a paying guest in a nearby locality. Raja Park was about fifteen minutes from my place, and I found this area a hustling, bustling spot for all college students. After all Raja Park has so much to offer                  

I shifted my place in 2017 and became permanent in Raja Park in 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 I am here in my hometown, 252 km away from Jaipur, a part of me is still there. A part of me secretly wished to roam around those lanes, buying regular groceries, binging on street food whenever I was stressed, sipping warm tea in winter on my favorite thadi, and visiting the holy gurdwara to pray for the college projects to go well....everything is being missed badly, till this day.

Anyway, 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 Jaipur, lane no.3 outlet of Brown Sugar Cafe & Bakers was newly opened. Brown Sugar had already established its name with 4 other outlets in the city. So, this is the fifth one. I just visited once with a friend and found the interiors quite refreshing, quirky, and a nice place to hang out overall. When we had a hospitality project in the second semester of college, I chose this cafe as a case study & came here again to have 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 is known for its baked preparations, mostly its variety of cakes (Red velvet being absolutely 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. The target users are families and students. This is the kind of cafe that 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 a square grid pattern. Exactly that is the purpose here, to reveal a warm atmosphere to the passers-by. Seeing the interaction of the light & material from outside, 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, and metal mesh chairs coupled with tables having wooden tops & metal bases. As I looked above I saw filament bulbs attached to metal rods over the 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 the menu show 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 - the juxtaposition of raw with refined & sleek, modern with vintage & classic. In fact, the complete brand identity of this cafe is modern industrial, as becomes clear by looking at the modern cityscape graphic on the menu card. Also the branding colors in the main logo - are brown & yellow. Brown gives that rugged masculine feel & bold yellow synonymous with fun is a common color in eateries, and also in modern interior trends. 

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 a common feature of industrial design. Timber offcuts 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 the sitting area & service counter. Blue and white color stripes are used to highlight this feature, which 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 a dark grey exposed ceiling and exposed brick walls with slight finishing given through Luxor paint. 

In the flooring, subway looks-alike tiles are used, and rough wooden tiles in the sitting area are in contrast to the same patterned vintage Spanish tiles we saw outside. These vintage ceramic tiles in an 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 a wooden handrest. The entryway is 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 purposes & 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 the countertop & an inserted long glass display shelf. The background has an open straight wooden shelf display with grey linear tiles on the wall, displaying an array of products. The point of sale is placed on the left of the entry & the wall beside it has big bowls & frames meant for decoration as well as sale. This is obviously everywhere, and the accessories are solving both 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 a modern interior scheme can break the monotony. The teak wood chairs,  molded to give a C shape are very comfortable. The tables are beautifully handcrafted with a 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, and 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, the are customized metal rod lights with filament bulbs and downlights which give a warm feel that draws people inside. In combination with industrial lights, antique brass lights highlight the counter especially and one brass pendant above a small coke freezer, exuding a vintage feel & not looking too heavy on the space.