Ikea wants to transition from furniture store to lifestyle brand. Can its restaurants — and new snack bars in its smaller city concepts — make that happen?
One of the first things a friend told me after she visited the new Ikea was that the rooftop would make a pretty good location for a first date. There’s a nice view, plus a bar operated by the hostel that occupies the top two floors of the building. So I decided to go on a date to Ikea. You know, for journalistic purposes.
I did see plenty of people spending time doing non-shopping things while I was there, especially on the rooftop terrace. A non-exhaustive list includes: studying and working on laptops using the store’s free WiFi, Instagram photoshoots, and even yoga. I also saw a group of people drinking beers they had bought elsewhere, a phenomenon that roaming security guards are supposedly meant to prevent . Up there, it’s easy to forget you’re on top of a furniture store.
I thought I was going to manage to visit the store without being tempted to buy anything. But as we went through the store to leave, right in front of the exit, I saw the one thing I kept forgetting I needed in my apartment: a microwave cover. I grabbed one without looking at the price , and then, since I was going to have to check out anyway, I grabbed a bag of pickled mushroom potato chips for the road.
Keeping the prices low is important to Ikea, because it all goes back to creating “a better everyday life” for as many people as possible, said the store’s managers. As food manager Wai Kan explained, rather than seeking to just satisfy hunger, the M.O. nowadays is to serve food that fits a particular worldview, and Ikea is adapting to that worldview.
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