Making of a Café Bag

Ever wonder how a TOM BIHN Bag actually comes together?

Maybe you’ve carried yours for years and never gave it much thought. Or maybe you’ve just unboxed your first one and found yourself poking around the seams, analyzing every zipper and trying to figure out how it’s all put together and why. 

The making of a bag usually happens behind the scenes — because who really wants to read paragraphs about fabric cuts and stitch choices…

Oh, you do?

Perfect. Because honestly, we love talking about it.

So, here’s a little behind-the-seams look at how a TOM BIHN bag is made, kicking it off with the Café Bag: from its origin, to pattern cutting, to finished product. Designed by Tom Bihn back in 1991, refined over the decades, and made by people who care way too much about zippers.

Let’s get into it. 

What Makes a Café Bag a Café Bag?

At first glance, it’s a simple flap-closure crossbody bag. But as with most things worth doing, simplicity — done well — is rarely simple to make.

Tom designed the original Small Café Bag in 1991 for a friend who wanted a compact shoulder bag — just big enough to carry a New York Times Best Seller and a few other essentials. (Read the full design story here)

The design struck a chord — the signature buckle closure, asymmetrical flap, and quick access back pocket. The Small Café Bag flew off the shelves at Tom’s Santa Cruz shop, and pretty soon, customers started asking: “Hey, do you have a bigger one?”

So he made one. And then another.
The Medium and Large Café Bags followed, each carefully scaled to balance capacity and comfort.

Over time, we retired the Large — not because it wasn’t loved, but because at that size, the design started to feel a little too floppy. It didn’t meet our standards, so we let it go.

Step 1: It All Starts With The Pattern

Tom didn’t just sketch out the Café Bag on a napkin and call it a day. He lived with the design. He tested it, revised it, and tweaked it until he landed on a bag that felt just right. 

One subtle but important detail: those slightly curved vertical seams. They’re intentional, not decorative. They’re shaped that way so when the flap is down, the sides pull in naturally — keeping the corners from gaping and keeping your gear dry from wet weather. 

There’s also the matter of the interior. Most bags hide their inner seams with binding tape. Tom found a better way. We use what’s called a “drop-in” liner — essentially sewing two bags (the exterior shell and interior lining), joining them, and then turning the whole thing right side out through a clever opening. The edge is then finished with a single needle topstitch. The result is a clean, smooth interior with no exposed seams or scratchy edges. Flip your bag inside out and you can really see the difference!

Step 2: Materials Are Pulled — Like a Chef Prepping Mise en Place

Every bag starts with a carefully planned materials list (kind of like an ingredients list). It details out the exact, carefully calculated quantities needed of everything, and the Café Bag is no different: 630d High-Tenacity ballistic nylon for the exterior, 210d cerlyon for the lining, nylon webbing for the shoulder strap and handle, YKK Zippers, Duraflex, Nexus, and Woojin buckles. 

Ben, our Director of Operations, is in charge of pulling all the materials from the shelves to prepare for production. Like a well-organized kitchen, everything’s portioned and prepped before the first stitch is made. 

Step 3: Cutting Fabric With Precision and Focus

Once materials are gathered, it’s time to cut. Every design is digitized into a 2D pattern, which we print onto a massive piece of paper and trace the pattern using industrial saws onto the stacks of fabric. Every panel has to be cut accurately, or the final bag won’t come together the way it should. 

Step 4: First Stitches — Shell Meets Liner

From there, the cut panels move to the production floor. The first stage is what we call 2D assembly — sewing flat panels together, joining linings to shells, assembling the zipper pulls onto the chains, sewing the chains onto the individual panels, attaching logos, and more.

Step 5: Details That Matter — Like Repairability

One of our favorite updates over the years? The replacement of the front buckle.

Early Café bags had the front buckles sewn in, which meant if one ever broke (it can happen, especially after years of love), repairs were tricky. Newer versions make it easier: we can now simply unpick a few stitches on the end of the webbing and swap in a new buckle.

Designing for longevity means designing for repair. We always take that into consideration when designing our bags — how to make gear last, and how to make sure you’re not out of luck if something eventually wears out.

Step 6: Joinery, Bar Tacks, and the 3D Build

Next, the Café Bag panels move to the joinery stage — where it stops being a flat project and becomes a real bag. Our joiners close up seams, shape the bag into its final form, and reinforce key points with bar tacks — those tight stitches you spot inside, a technique that we use to reinforce the insides, particularly on areas of stress, of every bag.

Step 7: Quality Assurance, Then Off to Its Next Life

Every Café Bag gets a full QA (Quality assurance) inspection. We check seams, corners, stitching, and flap alignment. If something’s off, the bag goes back — not into a bin, but right back to the production floor for fixing.

Once it passes QA, it’s scanned into inventory, placed on the shelf, and either picked up by a local customer or packed up and shipped across the world.

And that’s quite possibly the most simplified rundown of how we make our Café Bags. In reality, there are many steps within each step, and unique details and challenges that go along with making a Café Bag.

If you’re ever in Seattle, stop by the showroom. You can see our crew at work. If you’re not local, feel free to drop us a call — we’re always happy to talk shop.

After all, if you’re the kind of person who does want to read about seam placement and fabric tenacity… Well, you’re our kind of people.

Any particular questions you have in mind about what goes into making a Café Bag? Or maybe you’ve been dying to know the behind-the-seams of another bag?  Let us know, and we will try our best to answer!