The best merch for hospitality and drinks brands
Here's a strange fact about modern branding: some of the most-worn logos in London belong to restaurants and drinks brands. People pay actual money for Dishoom t-shirts. They carry Oatly totes unprompted. Blank Street caps are practically a personality type. Meanwhile, plenty of fashion-adjacent brands can't give their merch away.
We've made merch for all three of those brands, along with White Claw and Camden Town Brewery, so we've had a good view of why hospitality merch works when it works. It comes down to one thing: these brands aren't selling a product on a shelf, they're selling an experience people want to be associated with. Merch is how a customer takes the experience home.
If you run a café, restaurant, brewery or drinks brand, here's what that means in practice.
Your regulars are your media channel
A regular who wears your cap is doing something no ad can do: vouching for you. Their friends know they have taste; that's why they're friends. When your logo shows up on their head at the park, it arrives pre-endorsed. The entire job of hospitality merch is to be good enough that your best customers volunteer for this.
Which immediately rules out thin tees and stiff promotional caps. Your regulars own nice things. The merch has to survive comparison with the rest of their wardrobe, because that's exactly where you're asking it to live.
What to make
The graphic tee. The hospitality hero. The trick Dishoom understands: the design should be about the world of the restaurant, the feeling, the in-jokes, the place, not a billboard of the logo. A tee that says something only regulars fully get is a tee regulars actually wear. Heavyweight cotton, relaxed fit, printed.
The vintage dad cap. Low-profile, brushed cotton, embroidered. It's what Blank Street built a merch identity on, and it works because a good cap gets worn several times a week. Keep the embroidery small and clean.
The tote. Especially for cafés, bakeries, breweries, anywhere people carry things out the door. A sturdy canvas tote with one strong graphic becomes a reusable ad that your customer thanks you for. Oatly's totes are still circulating years on.
What to skip
Anything that only makes sense inside your venue. Branded bottle openers, coasters and keyrings feel like merch but behave like clutter, they never leave the drawer. Put the same budget into fewer wearable pieces and your brand actually goes places. Literally.
Where to start
One tee, one cap, 25–50 units of each, sold or given to your most loyal customers first. Core's minimums start at 10 units, and orders ship in 7–14 working days across the UK, so you can test what your regulars actually wear before committing to more. Start smaller than feels ambitious. Sell out. Do it again; a small drop that disappears builds more want than a big box that lingers.
FAQs
Should a restaurant sell merch or give it away? Both, deliberately. Sell it to customers (a paid-for tee gets worn more than a free one) and gift it to staff and your most loyal regulars.
What should merch for a café or brewery cost to make? Enough that you'd keep it yourself. A premium blank costs a little more per unit and is the difference between rotation and drawer.
What's the best first merch item for a hospitality brand? A printed heavyweight tee with a design about your world, not just your logo. It's the item people most willingly pay for.