Hotel Lobby AEI · Café Fit-Out
Seek In Nail & Cafe — A Hotel Lobby Transformed Into a Revenue-Generating Manicure Café
Project Overview
An underused hotel lobby, put to work
Seek In Nail & Cafe occupies what was previously an underused boutique hotel lobby in Singapore. Rather than leave the frontage as passive circulation space, the property owner turned it into a manicure café — a hybrid concept where a nail bar and a specialty coffee counter now draw walk-in trade from the street and give hotel guests a reason to linger.
This is an asset enhancement initiative (AEI) at heart: taking floor area that generated no direct income and converting it into a leasable, revenue-generating space. As café and F&B interior designers in Singapore, Skai Atelier was engaged to design the fit-out so a working nail bar and coffee counter could sit within the lobby without disrupting hotel arrival, check-in, or the building's heritage character.
Planning Challenge
Two experiences, one 200 sqft footprint
The core challenge here was not decoration — it was sequencing two different customer experiences within roughly 200 sqft without either one crowding out the other. The layout had to accommodate:
- — Customer arrival and orientation
- — A waiting moment that doesn't feel like standing in someone's way
- — The manicure service itself, which needs a degree of calm and privacy
- — Café ordering, preparation and collection
- — Storage for both nail-service supplies and café stock
- — Circulation that lets both functions run at the same time without colliding
Getting this wrong in a small footprint means one function reads as the "real" business and the other as an afterthought squeezed into the gaps. The brief was to avoid that — treating the manicure platform and the café counter as two properly designed functions sharing one address, not one primary use with a side concept bolted on.
Design Concept
Retail energy inside a working lobby
The concept had to earn its keep commercially without turning the lobby into a shop floor. The design lets a nail bar and a café read as an inviting amenity while the hotel keeps functioning around them. Our approach focused on:
- — A raised timber platform that carves a defined nail-service zone out of open lobby space
- — A slim café counter that anchors the entrance and reads instantly as a coffee bar
- — Window-bar seating that turns dead frontage into a street-facing draw
- — A warm, vintage palette that respects the building's heritage lobby character
The Palette
Warm, vintage, unmistakably cosy
The ambience comes from heritage detailing and warm light. Patterned encaustic floor tiles, a black steel-framed shopfront, warm timber joinery, and vintage-style pendant lamps give the space a lived-in, boutique character that complements the hotel rather than reading as a bolt-on retail unit. The result is a room that flatters both a cup of coffee and a fresh set of nails — soft, intimate, and easy to linger in, the kind of café ambience that keeps guests staying longer.
Spatial Strategy
Two revenue streams, one lobby footprint
Fitting a nail bar and a café into a live lobby meant zoning carefully around existing circulation. We used level changes, low joinery, and the bright frontage to define each function without walling anything off — the manicure platform sits back for a sense of privacy, the café counter greets arrivals, and the glazed frontage pulls passing footfall in from the street. The lobby keeps working; it just earns its keep now.
Zoning Logic
Compact zones, not two separate rooms
Rather than treating the nail bar and café as two conventional rooms, the 200 sqft was planned as a set of compact, connected zones. Circulation between the two functions is kept short and direct, so customers and staff aren't crossing the space unnecessarily. The café counter and manicure platform stay visually connected — a customer waiting for coffee can see the nail bar is active, and vice versa — while service activity stays concentrated within its own defined working zone rather than spilling across the floor. That discipline is what leaves enough clear area for the six customer seats: every part of the footprint is doing double duty as customer experience, active service space, or storage, with nothing left over as pure circulation.
Customer Journey
A short, legible path through a hybrid space
The planning follows a simple sequence: arrival at the frontage, a brief orientation moment where a customer registers which service they're there for, then either manicure activity or café ordering, followed by collection or a short wait, then exit. Café customers and manicure customers move through a shared entrance but settle into visually distinct zones almost immediately, so the journey feels legible rather than improvised — even though both concepts are sharing the same 200 sqft address.
Asset Enhancement
Turning unused space into leasable value
Leasing is harder than it used to be, and landlords are under pressure to make every square metre of their property earn its keep. Lobbies, corridors, dead frontages, and awkward corners often sit idle simply because no one has designed a use for them. That is exactly where an asset enhancement initiative (AEI) pays off — a targeted fit-out that converts passive area into a space a tenant will pay to occupy.
Seek In Nail & Cafe is a working example: an idle hotel lobby now generates rental income and draws footfall the property never captured before. Skai Atelier can look at the same opportunity across your portfolio — assessing unused or hard-to-lease spaces and designing the commercial fit-out that makes them viable, whether that is a café, a service concept, or a small retail insert. If you own a space that isn't pulling its weight, an AEI is often the fastest way to change that.
Outcome
A destination, not just an errand
The finished Seek In Nail & Cafe lets guests treat a manicure as a moment to slow down over good coffee — while the hotel gains a live amenity and a new income stream from space that used to sit empty. The two services support rather than crowd each other, the lobby never feels cramped, and the warm, heritage-tinged palette gives the property a distinct, photogenic identity.
Why It Works
Design that makes every square metre earn
Asset enhancement only works if the space planning is disciplined. By zoning with level changes and light instead of heavy partitions, the fit-out gave both the nail bar and the café room to breathe inside a working lobby — a repeatable model for landlords and operators looking to activate underused space while keeping a lid on café renovation cost in Singapore.
Staff Workflow
Keeping two services from competing for the same space
A hybrid concept like this has an obvious risk: café preparation, customer collection and manicure activity all competing for the same narrow circulation space. The planning kept café service activity concentrated around its own counter and prep zone, so staff aren't cutting across the manicure area to reach equipment or storage. Manicure service is comparatively stationary — technicians and clients stay within the platform for the duration of the service — which keeps that zone predictable and out of the main circulation path. The result is that café staff movement and manicure activity operate in parallel rather than crossing, reducing the everyday friction that a hybrid concept in a compact footprint could otherwise create.
Approvals & Fit-Out Coordination
Regulatory coordination, not an afterthought
As a new F&B opening within a compact mixed-use concept, the project required coordination beyond interior design alone. The fit-out involved landlord approval, SFA requirements, SCDF/FSSD coordination, URA requirements and Permit to Work procedures.
These requirements were considered alongside the spatial planning so that customer-facing areas, café operations and back-of-house services could be developed without treating statutory and building-management requirements as an afterthought.
For a 200 sqft unit, this coordination was particularly important because even small changes to service locations, circulation or equipment placement can affect how efficiently the limited floor area can be used.
Own a lobby, frontage, or unused space that could be earning? Talk to us about an asset enhancement initiative through our commercial renovation service, or if you're planning a café concept, explore our café renovation service and our guide on how to design a café layout.
