Counter Service

A 54-cover all-day café built around a single counter that works differently at 8am and 8pm.

Project: 04
Year: 2023
Location: Deccan Gymkhana, Pune
Area: 1,850 SQ FT
Type: Hospitality
Duration: 16 WEEKS

The brief

The operator wanted one room to run as a coffee shop in the morning, a work-and-lunch room in the afternoon, and a wine bar in the evening. Three atmospheres, one floor, no time to reset between them, and a service counter that had to face a different direction for each.

The approach

The counter is the whole plan. It is 7.2 metres long, open on both ends, and the espresso station sits at the street end while the bar service sits at the room end. In the morning the queue runs along the street side and never enters the seating area; in the evening the same counter serves from the opposite face and the morning end is closed down and cleared. Nothing is moved between shifts — the room changes because the service point changes.

Lighting does the rest of the work: four separately dimmed circuits, and the shift from a flat 4000K over the counter at breakfast to a 2700K pool over the tables at night is what actually makes the evening room feel like a different place. Materials had to take commercial wear on every surface below a metre — the counter face is fluted concrete, the tabletops are solid ash on steel bases, and the banquette is a heavy contract wool that has already survived a year of daily use.