Bench: Creative Solutions for a Creative Environment

Bench Café is located in the Goldsmith’s Centre in Britton Street in the heart of Clerkenwell. Managed by Company of Cooks, the café is a welcoming spot tucked away from the hustle and bustle around Farringdon station. Housed in a distinctive building with large arched windows, the café has a terrace with outdoor seating and tables.

The café, which caters to students, residents, local workers and visitors to the area, serves food made with fresh and seasonal ingredients sourced from local UK suppliers. Alongside signature classics Company of Cooks’ chefs serve daily specials. The Bench team strives to give back to its community and planet by introducing more plant-based dishes, sourcing ethical suppliers, and reducing food and packaging waste. Through its partnership with the Goldsmiths’ Centre, every purchase supports jewellers and silversmiths in learning craft and business skills for successful creative careers.

Six-Fold Objectives

We were commissioned by Company of Cooks to collaborate with them and the Bench team on refreshing the café’s interiors and achieving six key things: increasing the number of covers, introducing more comfortable seating to complement the existing options, improving circulation throughout the café and to the main service counter, adding a retail element, overcoming the harsh acoustics in the venue, and redesigning the serving counter to facilitate a bar offer in the evenings. In the latter case, the café currently has a licence until 9pm but has applied for a later one, so the goal was to create a more flexible environment offering food and coffee during the day and alcoholic drinks in the evening.

The Old & The New

In creating our solutions, we were asked to retain the limestone flooring, re-use the existing high tables and stools, and sets of wooden tables with chairs. We were also asked to keep the hanging leather screens which had earlier been introduced to combat the acoustic problems, as they reflect the leatherwork associated with crafts people based at the centre. Outside we retained the tables and chains which we introduced as part of an earlier refurbishment of the café. 

Our Solutions

We addressed the number of covers and the inclusion of more comfortable seating by reconfiguring the arrangement of the tables and chairs and introducing back-to-back upholstered banquette seating with accompanying resin marble tables and leather cushioned chairs. The new seating increased the number of covers by 16. The new arrangement of tables and chairs also improved the flow of the café and eased congestion around the serving counter.

To introduce a retail dimension to the café we created a display wall featuring shelved units for epicurean products like wines, sauces and relishes. The display is accompanied by signage with the message. “From our kitchen to yours to be enjoyed at home”. Underneath its counter are a series of glass fronted beverage fridges for self-serve, ‘grab & go’ customers.

The serving counter was redesigned to accommodate a seamless, inter-changeable hot and chilled induction panel, which we recessed flush into a Calcatta Classico Quartz countertop. This ensured there was minimum visibility of the panels or joins. In addition, we added a new high-level gantry to provide storage for wine glasses and bottles and display plants. Above the gantry, and interspersed between its uprights, are Sparkle & Bell RIAN metal stem pendant lighting with SMILE recycled plastic shades. Behind the new counter/bar are chalk-board style menu boards and shelved displays of coffee bags from Union Hand-Roasted and Well Grounded.

To help counter the acoustics problem we added ceiling mounted panels from The Acoustic Company, adding these to the existing acoustic wall mounted panels which display the work of the centre.

Unifying Colours

The overall colour palette of the café is white (walls, countertop, glazed tiles, and new tabletops), wood (tabletops, window bar tables and retail displays), metallic silver and black (chair frames, counter/bar gantry and stool backs), light grey (banquette seating and new high stool seating pads), and Little Green’s Eturia 326 paint for the walls up to dado rail level.

The fit-out, which we project managed, was undertaken by K C Services Group and the café re-opened in late 2023.

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