In 2025, instead of going out for New Year’s Eve, I invited all of my family and friends over on New Year’s Day for what I called the New Year’s Day Cafe! To celebrate the start of 2026, I wanted to host the cafe again but this time, I also went out for NYE and was still somehow able to pull it all together for a great day at home.
Here’s everything I did to bring the cafe to life as well as everything I included on the menu:
New Year’s Day Cafe Decor & Essentials
Coffee essentials:
- Milk Frother
- Espresso Machine
- Iced Coffee Glasses
- Pebble Ice Machine
- Ice Mold
- Syrup Jars
- Hyperchiller (a must for chilled drinks!)
- Custom Stickers
Kitchen essentials:
Winter wonderland decor:
THE TIMELINE
Hosting and parties of all kinds can seem intimidating or stressful, but I make sure to plan for them in a way that creates the most low stress hosting experience possible so I can actually enjoy the event alongside my guests. Here is a rough outline of how I would recommend preparing for this specific at home cafe!
Month-Week Prior:
- Invite your guests (of course!)
- Draft a menu and grocery list, inclusive of dietary needs and taste preferences of your guests
- Take inventory of plates, linens & serve ware to ensure you’re covered based on the amount of guests and types of dishes/drinks
- Order any supplies or ingredients that need to be purchased online
- Test out your recipes
- Design menus for your guests to order off of
Week Of:
- Main grocery shop of everything that can be purchased in advance
- Make food labels if you’d like for anything that will be self serve
- Decorate your space in all the ways that can be done in advance
- Gather and organize all serve ware so it’s ready to be set out
Day Before:
- If needed, secondary grocery shop as soon as the store opens to get any final needs and so you have as much time as possible
- Prep any recipes and ingredients that can be made in advance, such as the coffee syrups, hot chocolate, marshmallow meringue, pancakes, peel potatoes and store covered in water and measure out all ingredients for the monkey bread.
- Any final decor touchups
- Clean!
Morning Of:
- Finish any day of recipes, such as the monkey bread, bacon, potatoes and eggs, in this case
- Finalize setting up your space and of course, get yourself ready!
During:
- Take the orders from your guests, make the drinks and enjoy!
Bonus Tips:
- Have food made in advance throughout the week that you can eat while prepping because you probably won’t want to be cooking when prepping multiple dishes for your party, plus it saves time!
- Run and empty your dishwasher before the party so you can load everything instead of hand washing and taking up counter space. The easier the cleanup the better!
- Clean your spaces the night before hosting then do last minute touch ups prior to guests arriving
THE MENU
Below is everything that I included on the menu. There are only a few recipes to make and overall is super customizable and in turn dietary inclusive. I always aim to make everything super easy to prepare when hosting so you won’t be stressed putting these together!
The Syrups:
Here are the recipes I used in order to create the syrups used in the below drinks:
Peppermint Syrup
- Combine 1 cup of sugar with 1 cup of water in a sauce pan on the stove and bring to a simmer.
- Once the sugar has dissolved and you’ve created a simple syrup, remove the pan from the heat.
- Once the syrup is cooled, stir in 2 tsp of peppermint extract.
- Pour into a container or jar with a lid and keep refrigerated.
Sugar Cookie Syrup
- Scrape out the inside of one vanilla bean.
- Combine 1 1/2 cup of coconut sugar and 1 cup of water in a sauce pan on the stove and bring to a simmer.
- Once the sugar has dissolved and you’ve created a simple syrup, remove the pan from the heat.
- Once cool, stir in 1 tbsp vanilla extract, 1 tsp almond extract and 1 tsp butter extract.
- Pour into a container or jar with a lid and keep refrigerated.
Cinnamon Roll Syrup (click here!)
The Drinks:
Hot or Iced Cinnamon Roll Lattes
Hot or Iced Peppermint Mocha
- 2 shots espresso, 1/2 cup milk of choice, 2 oz chocolate syrup, 1-2 oz peppermint syrup
Hot Chocolate with Whipped Cream or Marshmallow Meringue
Hot or Iced Sugar Cookie Latte
- 2 shots espresso, 1/2 cup milk of choice, 2 oz sugar cookie syrup
- these are the sprinkles I used!
The Buffet:
- Scrambled Eggs
- Bacon
- Extra Crispy Potatoes (click here for the recipe!)
- Pancakes (click here for the mix we use and love!)
- toppings: butter, maple syrup and chocolate chips
- Monkey Bread (still working on this recipe and hoping it have it ready soon!)
A NOTE ON CALORIE COUNT, NUTRITIONAL INFO AND SERVING SIZES
Due to my past experiences, I do not include most of the above information within my recipes as it is unsafe for me to do so personally. While I try to share a rough estimate when it comes to the serving size, please note that it is very subjective as we all have different hunger levels both from person to person and even from meal to meal.
If any of the above information is important to you, I understand! We are all different and have various goals and needs. If you’d like, you are welcome to calculate the information needed based on the ingredients you use when making one of my recipes.
I hope you understand! This comes from a place of love and protection both for myself and others like me. If you ever have any questions, send me an Instagram message for the quickest response time! Thank you for being here!
MORE Hosting/PARTY IDEAS
I LOVE to throw a dinner party and host my family and friends! Click the links below to find some hosting inspiration!
- Italian Summer Themed Dinner Party
- Garden Dinner Party
- At Home Steak Dinner
- “Sea Ya” Summer Dinner Party
- Mediterranean Dinner Party
- Nancy Meyers Inspired Dinner Party
- At Home Pizza Parlor Dinner Party
- Steak Frites Dinner Party (Frenchgiving)
More Cafe Ideas:
- Farmers Market Cafe
- At Home Candy Cafe (Halloween Candy Inspired Treats & Lattes)
- New Year’s Day Cafe (Year 1)
FOLLOW ALONG
Be sure to follow me on Instagram and TikTok to see all of the behind the scenes of recipe creation as well as how to videos to watch them come to life! You can also head over to my Pinterest to save all of my recipes in one spot that you plan whip up in the future.
PS – If you make any of my recipes, I would be so grateful if you left a review so I can hear what you think! I also am happy to answer any questions you may have on here, but if you want a quicker response, be sure to shoot me a message on Instagram. Thank you so much and talk soon!
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