What I notice in the first 30 seconds of walking into a butcher shop.

I visit a lot of butcher shops. Some as a customer but most as part of my work by walking a space with an owner who's thinking about a refit, trying to understand what's working and what the opportunity might be. And some, if I'm honest, just because I find them interesting. A well-run butcher shop is one of the most satisfying retail environments there is.

Over time I've started noticing the same things, before I've spoken to anyone, before I've looked at the product, sometimes before I've even crossed the threshold. I'm not sure when it became a habit. But these are the things that tend to tell me, fairly quickly, whether a shop is firing on all cylinders or whether there might be something worth looking at.

I share them here not as a critique of anyone in particular but because I think they're worth thinking about, especially if you're considering a refit and trying to work out where the real opportunities are.

The shopfront

The first thing I notice is the shopfront, specifically whether it's doing any work or just existing. A shopfront that's working well gives you a reason to go in before you've decided whether you want to. The name is clear, there's something in the window that makes you slow down, the entrance feels welcoming rather than neutral.

I think shopfronts are often the last thing owners think about and the first thing customers see, which means there's usually an opportunity there that isn't being fully taken.

The smell

This sounds obvious but it genuinely matters.

A good butcher shop smells clean and cold with an undertone of something specific, the reassuring scent of well-handled, properly stored meat. It's not unpleasant. If anything it's rather comforting. It tells you before you've seen anything that the product is right and the housekeeping is serious.

It's one of those things you can't manufacture and can't fake. Which means when it's right, it's doing a lot of quiet work on behalf of the business.

The light

My eyes tend to go straight to the counter and specifically to how it's lit.

Good counter lighting makes product look genuinely beautiful, vivid, fresh, worth buying. Warm enough to be inviting, bright enough to show colour and texture properly.

I've walked into shops where the lighting alone made me want to buy something before I'd read a single label. And I've walked into shops where clearly nobody has stood on the customer side of the counter recently and asked: does this look as good as it could?

It's one of the most impactful and most underinvested elements in food retail. Getting it right doesn't have to cost a lot but it changes everything.

The counter itself

Then I look at how the counter is arranged, not what's in it, but the logic of it.

Is there a sense that someone has thought about what the customer sees first? What draws the eye? What creates a reason to look further along?

The best counters I've seen are merchandised with real intention, product placed and maintained throughout the day with care. It's the kind of thing customers probably can't articulate but absolutely feel. A counter that looks considered makes the product feel more considered.

Whether anyone acknowledges me

I'm not talking about being greeted with great ceremony. Just the moment I walk in, is there any acknowledgement that I'm there? Eye contact, a nod, someone saying they'll be with me shortly?

In a busy shop this is genuinely hard and I understand that. But the shops that manage it even when they're four deep at the counter have understood something important: the moment a customer walks in is the moment the experience either begins well or begins with a small uncertainty.

Small uncertainties in a retail environment have a habit of sending people back out of the door.

None of these things in isolation will make or break a business. And plenty of brilliant butcher shops will have one or two of them not quite right and still be doing wonderfully.

But taken together they tend to reflect something about whether a shop is being thought about from the customer's side of the counter, which is a harder perspective to maintain than it sounds when you're the one running the business every day.

The reason I think about this in the context of refits is that a well designed space makes all of these things easier.

Tom Burgh is the founder of Food Retail Partner, a design and project management consultancy working exclusively with farm shops, butchers and deli's. tom@foodretailpartner.co.uk · foodretailpartner.co.uk