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Permalink Reply by Michael Canton on August 20, 2009 at 11:39am

What will bring the people in? What is your focus? Are you going green? There are many different reasons why you should name your cafe and you have to pick the right one. Do you want to convey that you are the only "local" cafe in town, or are you in a larger complex that gets good advertising? I'm putting a brand new shop in a new work/live loft complex and decided to name the cafe the same as the lofts only because the owner of the lofts has a $50,000 budget for advertising and I want some of that! Just a couple of ideas that will hopefully help...

Permalink Reply by DoubleoSoul on October 22, 2009 at 12:40am

I just learned about the Blue Bottle Cafe history (1st Coffee house in Vienna) tonight myself! I wondered where the Blue Bottle Cafe here in San Francisco got it's name. Very clever.

Dave Crothall said:

I agree with keeping it very easy to say and remember. Short and sweet. Personally, I like to avoid Italian words (tough for english speaking folk) and I find names involving beans, grinds, or a strangely spelled version of 'coffee' to be a little lacking in originality. The type of shop you are setting up sounds somewhat similar to what I set up in that it is a large hangout and I have enjoyed traveling (no time anymore!). My family is all Kiwi and my mum is birder, so I went after some New Zealand birds for inspiration. I also researched the history of coffee and discovered that apparently the first cafe in Europe was called the Blue Bottle, which strangely enough is a pseudonym for a Portuguese Man-o-War (jellyfish). So I chose the Black Stilt, which is found in the same region my mum grew up in and follows a similar historical reference as the Blue Bottle! While the name doesn't evoke coffee straight up, if you do a good job with your shop and brand yourself well, no one will forget your name or mix it up with anyone else's. SOOOO, my advice, simple easy words, stay away from obvious coffee words and look back at your own family history and interests. Customer's love to ask why you named something unusual and if the explanation is good and family/personal, all the better!

Good Luck

Permalink Reply by Robert Williams on October 25, 2009 at 8:07pm

When we were decided onto what we should name our coffee shop, we organised a whole day to think and brain-storm on it. Well, this is how it began.

We all sat down, after I served up some delicious yirga long blacks of course ;) and pulled up a whiteboard, in which I drew a street junction, where our coffee shop is on the corner of it. I think said "We are here, on the corner of these roads". Then I flipped the whiteboard and wrote the word 'Corner' - 'Abbreviated form for advertising purposes 'Cnr''

Everyone sat there in shock at how simple I made it. Thus, Cnr was born.

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