Lead Times Cafes Should Plan For
By The Velocity Wear Team
Production takes 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval, with delivery transit on top. For a cafe that means a comfortable six weeks between deciding to order and having shirts behind the counter, because the approval stage and the sample stage both sit in front of the production window and both depend on how quickly your side signs things off.
How long does a cafe order take from start to finish?
Count it in four blocks. Choosing the garment and gathering sizes takes as long as your team takes, usually a week. Artwork setup and approval adds a few days, more if the logo needs redrawing for embroidery. Production is the fixed 10 to 15 working days. Then transit, which varies by destination across the UK, the USA and Europe. Add a sample and the calendar gains whatever your own testing takes. The hospitality range is a useful starting point precisely because choosing quickly is the part you control.
When does the clock actually start?
At artwork approval, not at the order. This is the single most misread line in any quotation. A cafe that places an order on the first of the month and approves the proof on the fourteenth has not lost two weeks of production time; it has simply not started yet. Get the logo file ready before you order, in vector format, with the colours named rather than guessed, and the approval stage collapses from a fortnight to a day.
What pushes a job past 15 working days?
Changes after approval are the main one, and they restart the clock rather than pausing it. A late size change, a swapped garment colour or a redrawn logo all mean the job re-enters the queue. The others are seasonal: peak periods compress capacity across the whole industry, and transit slows around public holidays in whichever market you are shipping to. Our guide to what delays a clothing order lists the common causes, and the wider production timeline explainer shows where each stage sits.
How far ahead should a seasonal launch be booked?
Work backwards from the date the kit needs to be worn, not the date it needs to arrive. If you want new shirts on the floor for a summer opening, count back the transit, then the 10 to 15 working days, then a week for approval, then a week for deciding, and you have your order date. For anything tied to an event, add a further week of slack. It is cheaper to have boxes sitting in the stockroom for ten days than to open with half the team in the old kit. The full product catalogue lists what else can be produced on the same schedule.
One habit worth adopting: book the reorder at the same time you place the first order. A cafe that knows it will want more shirts in nine months can put the date in the calendar now, and the second run then never becomes urgent.
Use the production window rather than waiting through it. Those two or three weeks are when a cafe should be deciding who gets which garment, writing the size list into the staff handbook, and agreeing how kit is returned when somebody leaves. Sites that settle those three things before the boxes land hand the shirts out in a morning. Sites that do not spend the following month tracking pieces down. It is also the right moment to photograph the sample for a staff notice, so the team knows what is coming before it arrives.
Put the order date in a shared calendar rather than relying on anybody to remember it. Kit is the one purchase in a small cafe with a long lead time attached, which is precisely why it gets remembered too late. A dated reminder six weeks before the garments are needed removes the entire problem.
