Wayfair
Kitchen Design | New Concept Creation | Operations | Guest Experience | Menu Development
Not just a place to buy, but a place to be.
Showcase Award
2025 FCSI
AWARDED TO CINILITTLE,
COLLABORATOR
20+
RECIPES DEVELOPED
Store of the Year
FOR 25K SQ. FT.
2025 SHOP! ASSOCIATION AWARDS
How does the brand identity tell the story of the food?
The Culinary Edge served as the strategic bridge between Wayfair’s established retail identity and the plate, ensuring the culinary program felt like a natural extension of the "home you love." TCE meticulously developed a menu of approachable American comfort food designed to "taste like" Wayfair—stylish, high-quality, and deeply welcoming. By translating Wayfair’s brand pillars into a tangible food and beverage program, TCE ensured that every recipe reinforced the store’s mission, turning the cafe into the literal and figurative "heart of the home" for every visiting shopper.
What does the architecture and interior design have to achieve?
To support the architectural vision led by Gensler, TCE focused on ensuring the Cafe space, The Porch, was optimized for a sophisticated yet "easy-to-execute" hospitality model. Our role was to guide the kitchen design so that the menu was able to be executed quickly and efficientl. By providing expert guidance to Cini-Little on kitchen design and equipment placement, TCE ensured the back-of-house footprint was perfectly calibrated to deliver the fresh, high-quality menu we developed, ultimately contributing to a space that won industry accolades for its innovative design with the 2025 FCSI Showcase Award.
What were the major operational challenges to overcome?
The primary challenge was engineering a high-fidelity, freshly made culinary program that could be executed with precision within a retail-first operations model. TCE overcame this by designing streamlined workflows that minimized complexity without compromising the "homemade" quality expected of the Wayfair brand. We worked closely with Cini-Little to navigate the technical constraints of the retail footprint, ensuring that the kitchen design supported rapid ticket times and high-volume throughput, even during peak shopping hours, while maintaining the rigorous standards of our developed recipes.
How do you build consistency and reliability into the recipes?
By focusing on high-impact American comfort hits that required minimal technical complexity, we ensured that the menu was easily executable by the staff without sacrificing quality. This focus on operational simplicity—paired with the award-winning kitchen layout we helped guide—provided Wayfair with a scalable, consistent food program that brought the heart into the home store with every dish served.