The Five Senses - An Explanation

In the planning for Kaffeine, I came across a book called ‘Wake up and smell the Profit, 52 ways to maximise profit in your cafe business’, by Hugh Gilmartin and Johnnie Richardson.

In that book, one of the things they listed was the importance of the five human senses. Taste, feel, sight, sound and hearing and how important it was that all of these five senses or addressed equally in a cafe. It struck me as a very valid and important point, and it is certainly something that we try very hard to achieve at Kaffeine.

For example, music in cafe has been a topic on twitter this week. Our music policy is to have a good background beat of music that also has a happy vibe to it, that is not obtrusive, too loud or offensive, that just blends in with the natural conversation, though does not make people talk louder to make themselves heard.

We are very passionate about our music here, and we create ‘daylists’ that start off slow and easy (7:30 am) and build though the day finally slowing again around 5 pm. Proper DJ sets really, but we have to create them for a 12 hour day, for 7 days of the week. It is not easy to do.

We also keep everything spotlessy clean and visually appealing(sight), bake lovely treats like ANZACS and chocolate brownies (smell and taste) and have decor that has a good (feel) to it.

Perhaps we would have achieved it anyway, without knowing that we were. But also now, when I go into any other hospitality business, from cafe to five star hotel, I reflect and think, are all my senses being evenly matched? Because if they are not, then I guess that business is really not up to standard.

Peter Dore-Smith
Director
Kaffeine Ltd
66 Great Titchfield st.
15 Eastcastle st.