Pantry by Madhappy

Madhappy and PlayLab set out to build a store where the shopping came second, and the design brief says it flatly: "the retail becomes a utility that serves the space, rather than driving it." The brand files Pantry under Community on its own site, next to the mixes and the podcast, and the room is doing more of the work here than the coffee is.

Every espresso drink is Hotel Drugs, a Tokyo coffee stand, and its 2kg sacks stack in Pantry's back of house under the line "Roasted in paradise aka Tokyo." The bar is a La Marzocco and one grinder with no filter or pour-over on the list, and the take-home bag is Pantry's own blend at $20, sold with no origin, process or roast date on it.

One sky-blue concrete floor runs from the entry porch through the store and back out into the café courtyard, where seventeen-foot white stucco walls frame the sky and a single aloe tree stands in a bed of gravel. The counter is an alcove of green-stained plywood cut into that white wall, lit by a cube lightbox carrying the Pantry wordmark and a peace sign drawn out of coffee beans, with loose plywood cube stools in the same green out on the blue.