Coworking and shared offices have a problem specific to them: members expect refreshments, often expect access outside staffed hours, and every hour your community manager spends restocking a fridge is an hour not spent on members.
The unstaffed hours problem
Most shared workspaces offer some form of 24-hour or extended member access. But the front desk is staffed nine to five, and the honesty box, the fridge and the snack basket all assume someone is around. A tap-to-open cooler works identically at 7am on a Sunday and 2pm on a Tuesday, with no staff involvement either way.
Anything that requires your community manager to be standing there stops working the moment they aren't.
Multi-tenant buildings
In a shared office building, the calculation is slightly different: no single tenant justifies equipment, but the building collectively does. Placement near the elevator lobby, a shared conference floor or whichever door people actually use will out-perform any individual tenant's break room.
It's also a genuine leasing point. A building with reliable on-site refreshments shows better than one where prospective tenants are told the nearest option is a drive away.
What members actually buy
Shared workspaces skew differently from warehouses or plants. Expect stronger demand for cold brew and iced coffee, sparkling water, better-for-you snacks, and real lunch items — and softer demand for traditional soda and candy. We adjust the mix from what actually sells at your location rather than assuming.
Why a cooler rather than a machine
- Holds proper lunch items, glass bottles and fresh food a coil machine can't
- Nothing jams, so nobody knocks on the community manager's door for a refund
- Cashless by design, which matches how members already pay for everything
- Looks like a fridge rather than a vending machine, which matters in a space you've designed carefully
What it replaces
Usually: a fridge somebody has to stock, a snack basket somebody has to reorder, and a recurring small line item in your operating budget. The trade is that members pay for what they take rather than it being bundled into membership — which most operators find members accept readily when the alternative is an empty fridge on a Friday afternoon.
What to tell us
- Member or desk count, and typical daily occupancy
- Whether members have access outside staffed hours
- Whether it's a single coworking operator or a multi-tenant building
- What you currently provide, and what it costs you to keep it stocked
Tell us how your space is used
Share a few details about the property and the people who use it. We'll review the location and follow up with information about possible options.
Tell us about your space