3 Steps to Create an At Home Cafe You Will Love

Want to know how I created an at home cafe? These are 3 simple steps you need to create the same thing.

At-home cafés have been popping up as recommended videos on my YouTube account. So naturally, I had to check these out. Let me tell you, I was surprised and intrigued, and it was the cutest idea ever!

After watching numerous at-home café videos, I decided to put my own twist on the idea and host one for my family: a back-to-school café. I’m going to share with you the three main steps I used to make sure this at home café came together.

After learning these steps, you will be able to host the most talked about café for your friends and family.

This post is all about how I made a diy at home cafè.

This blog post may contain affiliate links.

At Home Café Tips

1. At Home Café Theme

It’s already August, and my kids are all set to return to school. Hosting an event like this made them very excited. They are at the age where they want to make decisions and try new foods and drinks, so I knew this would be a hit!

So I knew a back to school theme would be a great at home cafe idea. Now I had tons of ways I wanted to bring in back to school but to be honest I ran short on time and I didn’t get to fully decorate with my theme.

Next time, I would bring out any theme with stickers for plastic clear cups, back to school themed placemats, and centerpieces.

2. At Home Café Menu Selection

The first thing I did was create a menu. I knew I couldn’t just serve pastries because that would leave me preparing treats and still having to cook dinner. So I planned to have some actual food to satisfy everyone’s appetite.

To get some at home café menu ideas, I looked on Pinterest and searched through a few cookbooks I have to spark some ideas.

Here’s what I included on my at home café menu:

Marry Me Chicken Pasta – This is a delicious dish that frequently appears on my Pinterest feed. I had to make it for our café.
BBQ Meatballs – BBQ and grape jelly with frozen meatballs was a no-brainer it is a crowd pleaser in my house.
Assorted Cookies – I decided to make a variety for everyone to enjoy.
Key Lime Bars – This was a little something more for me and my husband; my kids aren’t too crazy about key lime, but they did try it. Here is the recipe I used for the key lime bars.
Croissants
Chocolate Croissants
Drinks – Lemonade, Orange Juice, Popwell, Hot Chocolate

3. Setting the Scene for the At Home Café

Next, I had to make a sign because this wouldn’t be a cafè without one! To make the signs, I ordered a brown paper roll from Walmart. To paint on the signs, I used some paint we had at home. This was the perfet opportunity to get my girls to help make signs.

I used both tempera paint and acrylic. I recommend using tempera paint because it can easily wash out of clothes. Dollar Tree has a nice assortment of tempera paint.

I also planned to use the brown paper roll to cover my kitchen island and to display all my desserts.

Initially, I wanted to get clear cups to put cute stickers on. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any at the store I visited. Here are the circle stickers I will get next time. However, they did have some coffee cups, so I felt this would give the café vibe.

Finally, I picked up a cute flower bouquet to add a pop of color to our display.

The kids really enjoyed the whole experience. It was fun seeing them try the different pastries and food. I feel like when food is laid out like a charcuterie board, the kids are more inclined to try a new food.

You can make this cafe as grand or as simple as you want. I also designed activity placemats in Canva. However, I didn’t get to use them because I completely forgot I had made them. They weren’t even missed, that’s why I say make it as grand or as simple as you want. If you would like the PDF file of the placemats, download it here.

I would do this again and maybe even host one when my family comes to town.