Designing a Five-Star Office Kitchen: 6 Tips for Creating a Gathering Space

    Transform your office kitchen into the heart of the workplace with these expert design tips.

    ✍️  Written by Dena Roché & Rebecca Ross 
    🕚  7-Minute Read • Updated Wednesday, January 29, 2025

    Designing a Five-Star Office Kitchen [6 Tips]-1

    Think about your favorite room in your house. What makes it special is how it makes you feel when you’re in it. At work, it’s important to have a space where employees feel relaxed, comfortable, and happy. The office breakroom is a natural gathering space and when it’s designed with both function and fun in mind it transforms into the heart of your company. Follow these simple design tips to create an office kitchen that serves up good vibes every day.

    The experts at Crafty are ready to help you set the vibe with an office kitchen design that will foster employee connectivity and productivity. When you’re creating an office kitchen design, follow these six tips to help you create a space destined to become the heart of your office.

    1. Seating Arrangements
    2. Incorporate Color
    3. Set the Tone
    4. Bring in Snacks 
    5. Time to Entertain
    6. Party Time

    Seating Arrangements 

    Gone are the days when an office kitchen was a place people passed through to get coffee or microwave lunch. Smart companies know that by creating a place for people to gather, employees are happier and more connected to their co-workers, resulting in improved productivity and a better employee experience. 

    The first step to creating this environment is to offer comfortable seating in your office kitchen. Think of your favorite coffee shop, and you’ll get the idea of the energy you’re aiming for. A mix of two-top tables, communal tables, bar seating, and some plush lounging chairs or sofas is ideal to give employees spaces to relax, brainstorm, and have impromptu meetings with co-workers. 

    When selecting and placing your furniture, here's what you'll want to keep in mind:

    • Pick pieces that blend in with the overall aesthetic of your office.
    • Ensure furniture is durable, water-resistant, and easy to clean.
    • Go for comfort. You want people to linger in these areas.
    • Arrange the furniture intentionally.
      • Have lounge chairs and sofas grouped in twos or fours facing each other to encourage more conversations.
      • At small tables always make sure there are two chairs.
      • Single seats make it difficult for employees to engage with each other. Only do this for focus areas. 

    Remember, we live in a hybrid era so we need to design the office experience accordingly. Not ever employee does their best work at a desk, and the office kitchen can offer employees another space to work in. Changing up the environment sparks creativity, so encourage it by making sure that seats have access to power plugs so people can bring their laptops in and work where they feel comfortable.

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    Incorporate Color

    Color is a great way to infuse personality into your office kitchen design. Color isn’t just a tool to make the space more pleasing, there’s a whole science behind how it influences our mood and energy. 

    Not only are stark white walls boring, studies show that people make the most errors when working in all-white rooms. Depending on the vibe you want to create in your office kitchen, you can use certain colors to help:

    • Blue: Enhances concentration and creates a calming environment
    • Red: Increases energy and attention
    • Green: Improves creativity, harmony, and peace while reducing anxiety and eyestrain
    • Pink: Surprisingly, was found to be the most calming color on the color wheel
    • Browns: Inspires comfort and security
    • Yellow: While some find it uplifting, for others it’s a color that causes anxiety

    In addition to painting the walls, you can add color to your office kitchen design in several other ways. Use accents like art, throw pillows, area rugs, and plants for pops of color and personality. Countertop appliances, dishes, and mugs can also add color to the space. 

    Depending on your corporate colors, you can use them in your office kitchen design to reinforce your company identity.

    Set the Tone

    Music is a powerful tool that influences how we feel. It acts on neurotransmitters in our brain which control the mood chemicals dopamine and serotonin. Companies can use softly played music in the office kitchen area to reduce their employees' stress, and improve cognition, concentration, and happiness. 

    Different musical genres produce different feelings and emotions.

    • Classical music helps sharpen memory and cognition and is generally calming.
    • Upbeat pop tunes help dial up the endorphins and energy level.
    • Blues can reduce anxiety and nerves.

    While not inherently bad, look for music that has general appeal, avoiding niches like heavy metal or show tunes unless those styles are inherent in the industry your company works in and play into your specific company culture.

    The music in your office breakroom can change throughout the day from tunes designed to inspire a productive morning, to playlists featuring beats for deep focus to more feel-good songs over the lunch hour. If you want to further engage employees, ask one person or one department to suggest songs for your playlist, like we do at Crafty. The practice has resulted in more feelings of inclusion and even turned some of the staff onto new and exciting artists, they might not know otherwise.

    Bring in Snacks

    Food has always been a powerful motivator, especially in the workplace. While everyone needs to eat, the type of options you offer can turn a quick snack break into a meaningful moment—one that benefits both the employee and the business. The secret lies in how food brings people together in specific areas and creates opportunities for connection.

    The mistake many workplaces make is thinking any old snack will do the trick. The key isn’t just filling the pantry with food; it’s about aligning those snacks with the goals and values your employees share. That’s where an inclusive pantry comes in. When you tailor your selection to meet these needs, you spark conversations, strengthen bonds, and foster a more connected workplace.

    In our latest workplace trends report, we explore the three main approaches employees have toward their pantry choices:

    • Allergen-Based: Catering to specific allergies or sensitivities like gluten-free, nut-free, or dairy-free options. Did you know that 26 million working adults in the U.S. have food allergies? Offering allergen-friendly snacks ensures that no one is left out of the conversation.
    • Goal-Based: Focused on health goals, whether it’s managing blood sugar, boosting energy, or supporting weight loss. With the rise of GLP-1 medications like Ozempic, which help regulate hunger, there’s a growing demand for snacks that are high in protein and low in sugar. Over 75% of Americans are actively seeking to limit or avoid sugar in their diets, so finding options that support these health goals is crucial. 
    • Values-Based: Aligning food choices with personal values, such as sustainability, religion, or local sourcing. In fact, 69% of employees want their company to invest in sustainability, and offering vegan products or snacks from minority-owned brands can resonate with these values, fostering a sense of belonging.

    Once you understand these approaches, you can begin to tailor your pantry to meet these needs, creating a space where employees feel supported, heard, and connected.

    Time to Entertain

    Yes, an office is about work, but it’s also about people and their well-being. While it might seem counterintuitive to put entertainment elements into your office kitchen, it can benefit the bottom line. 

    Silicon Valley tech companies ushered in the concept of outfitting an office with games, and the trend permeated to other industries. You can create an area of the office kitchen dedicated to various games like foosball, shuffleboard, ping-pong, billiards, or even simple board games.

    Here are some office entertainment ideas to break up the average workday: 

    • Board Games: Scrabble, anyone? Not only does it boost morale, depending on what games you select, it can build camaraderie, help team building, and improve productivity. Some games known for building collaboration at work include Jenga, Pictionary, trivia, and jigsaw puzzles.
    • Video Games: While we often lament kids who play video games 24/7, adding them to your office kitchen game library can have many positive effects.
      • With most games taking three to 10 minutes to complete, they’re a quick reset for employees.
      • Playing video games can reduce stress and increase brain function in terms of cognition, reasoning, and perception. Video games are also excellent team-building tools.
      • Research shows that team productivity and performance increased after the teams played video games. Some top team-building video games include Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, Rocket League, and the perfect one for the office kitchen area, Overcooked! 2, which is basically Hell’s Kitchen brought to Nintendo. No matter what games you select, get creative and host tournaments, pit the marketing team against the finance team or offer a league.
    • TV: Incorporating TVs into your office kitchen design is smart because they can be used in a variety of ways to build company culture.
      • Invite employees to watch major events and sports competitions together to create community.
      • Televisions are also great places to share company messaging using a service like Loop TV. You can spread the word on important deadlines, upcoming company events, employee birthdays, and general company news.
      • You can use TVs to promote employee well-being with content tailored to exercises to do at your desk or health tips.
      • If you want to take advantage of standard network or streaming shows, pick something that appeals to a broad audience and isn’t divisive. In the office kitchen, cooking shows are a natural fit.
    expert food and beverage concierge
    the office coffee shop

    Party Time

    Nothing builds employee camaraderie like a party, and your new office kitchen is the perfect place to have celebrations. A well-thrown party improves employee morale, satisfaction, and retention. 

    Some party ideas that are especially suited to your new office kitchen include events that get your team bonding over food.

    • Hands-on cooking class like learning to make pasta or pizza making.
    • Lunch and learn demonstration class. 
    • Happy hour, wine tasting, or pub trivia contest. 

    Conclusion

    A five-star food service is an opportunity for you to infuse your company’s personality and culture into its physical space. It’s also a way to boost employee morale, productivity, and retention. When designed well, your office kitchen serves as a hub for communal dining, a space for brainstorming and working, and a place for team building and parties. A great space also provides an area to impress and entertain clients. 

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