Zara’s in a Caffeine Spin

FOR THOSE WHO don’t know it (and you probably all do), Zara (Arteixo, Spain) is a fashion retailer that sells sleek men’s, women’s and childrenswear and has a home furnishings and homewares arm. It is highly successful, combining flair in product design with stores that make you stop and stare.

And like others, in a few of its stores, there are places to get a hot beverage and perhaps a pastry (the Zara Home store, known as Bac 117, on Paris’ Rue du Bac, is a stunning case in point). Now it has gone a step further with the opening of a “Zara Man” standalone store in Madrid, which happens to have a “Zacaffé” next to it.

Photography: Courtesy of Zara

This is a store with a café, but it has been constructed in such a manner as to make it perfectly possible for a visitor to enjoy a cappuccino without actually heading into the rest of the store or perhaps even knowing about it. It has its own entrance, and the interior has been created to remind the caffeine-lover of the color and feel of a Moorish structure, referencing part of the historical architectural backdrop of this part of the world.

This is a cafe generated from a fashion retail environment, and plans are in place for more to follow, with standalone Zacaffé branches set to open in 2025, with Tokyo and Seoul already on the drawing board.

We’re all used to spinoffs, and Zara continues to set the agenda by taking elements of what it does and then turning them into standalone propositions.

Given that seemingly everything Zara’s parent company, Inditex, does seem to have about it an element of both difference and success, there is little reason to imagine that this latest avatar will not find a devoted following as it appears across multiple territories. More to the point, how closely have you looked at what you do and considered whether some part of it might not work on its own? Worth having a look.

Photography: Courtesy of Zara