Designing a Restaurant Tips and Advice

Without a superb atmosphere, your food and service wouldn't be fully cherished. A winning front-of-the-house (FOH) design will go with your concept and match the tastes and desires of your proposed customers. You should already have started performing research in your market, investigating demographics, psychographics as well as your competitor. This will assist you in creating a frenzy atmosphere that could attract the kind of customers you actually want.

If you are renting a place, try to avoid costly renovations; it is better to select a design and layout that accommodates the prevailing space. In these circumstances, space limitations needs to be your first consideration. If you are constructing your own restaurant, you will have to think about interior design as you have to work with your general contractor, architect, electrical engineer or food service experts.

 

The Fundamentals of FOH Design

Before designing your restaurant, deliberate on comfort, style and seating size. How many clients do you need to have as part of your dining area at a time? How do you want them to feel? These factors will define the layout, and design of your front-of-the-house area.

The major decision, you must make is how many different spaces you would you like to create within the front on the house. Your FOH design can encompass these following areas:

· Main kitchen

· Private dining rooms

· Bar area

· Patio diner

· Entry and waiting area

· Server stations

As you arrange for your designs, recognize that the look and feel of one's restaurant should reflect your branding efforts. After sometime, individuals start to associate your restaurant's design to your restaurant's name. So it is vital that your restaurant interior design matches or goes along with all the rest of your restaurant's designs, comprising advertisements, takeout packaging, menus and exterior restaurant décor.

 

Setting the Right Tone

Before you start designing your dining area, consider what kind of emotional tone you would like to create. Your designs can be very different depending on how you want your clients to feel. After sometime, the “outlook” of your restaurant will definitely be unified into your concept. For instance, a warm, friendly Italian bistro may have a very different atmosphere than the usual casual, energetic Italian brasserie.

 

Building Intimacy

With a reduced space, the intimacy is already been there, so attaining an enthralling atmosphere is simply a matter of using dark colors, low lighting and personal seating layouts. With a large space, creating intimacy is a bit more difficult. For high ceilings, use lines angled upward to pull the eye up, or hang fabrics, lamps or chandeliers to lower the ceiling. Curtains or “nooks” may be used to anchor tables and make up a feeling of privacy.

 

 

Creating Warmth

To create a captivating and setting, stay clear of metals and glass, which feel sterile. In its place, seek to incorporate these 4 elements:

· Fabrics

· Yellow or terrific electric lighting

· Fireplaces and top quality candles

·  Very warm colors and special tones

· Wooden cabinets and ceiling rose

Producing Energy

These subsequent elements can add to creating a place of excitement:

· Fabrics

· Great contrast in different colors and smoothness

· Lessen it by using sensitive mirrors

· Various lighting

· Cheerful music

· Bring table closer together

You could also  use an open dining space, slightly louder music as well as a more crowded layout. You can purposefully place mirrors to boost your lighting and reflect the living room to produce the illusion that there might be more space plus a larger crowd. A bar that spills into the dinning region can also support the generation of energy.

 

Creating Elegance

If you wish to attain elegance, do not duel much on the decorating. Design features must be very simple and well tied-together. Each and every table need to be independently lighted with candles, tea lights, bulbs or hanging lights.

 

Image source: contemporist.com

 

Creating Comfort

You could also make use of sofas, cushioned seating, upholstered booths and also a spread-out table layout to produce a comfortable atmosphere.

 

Creating Casualness

You can seek to incorporate these 4 elements to make a casual, natural atmosphere:

· Roomy seats

· Mounted televisions

· Cheerful music

· Hodge-podge or makeshift décor

· Casual staff uniforms

Using marginally brighter lighting will even be likely to make a more unintended effect.

 

Dining area and Front row Layout

There are countless living room layout possibilities available. You can have several dining rooms that flow together, a dining area that is partitioned into isolated spaces or one big open dining-room. You also can have separate dining rooms to support private parties. Whatever living area layout you ultimately choose, the placement of the tables and seating is evenly important, also it impacts your prospects' spending. Dining Room interior decoration and Atmosphere

The patterns, decorations and sounds   in your dining room will affect the mood of your prospective customers and maintain your entire restaurant design. Melody music, sound, seating, lighting strips and wall decorations actually should match your notion and encourage customer comfort and fulfillment. Plants, flowers, tabletop décor and fabrics could all make excellent additions to your restaurants decor system.

 

Bar Area

If you are thinking of having a bar try to make it the focal point in your restaurant, and make sure that it spills into the living area, it'll expertly add sense of energy towards the space. The lighting from the bar can illuminate your gathering of liquor bottles to show off the array of the drink offerings. Locating the bar close to waiting area can be another tremendous choice, since the customers will welcome the chance to order for drinks while waiting at a table.

 

Patio Dining Area

During hot seasons, patio dining is an excellent way to enlarge your living area and benefit from the beautiful weather. Make Use of outside furniture and market umbrellas to obstruct the sun. You could also use outdoor heaters to broaden life of your respective patio into colder months. When your patio area is large, you might need a distinct bar, or you may plan the bar to span the patio plus the indoor dining-room.

 

Image source: jpconcept.com

 

Waiting Area

With the exclusion of quick-service and reservation-only establishments, nearly all other restaurants should hope for the best and offer their patrons with a good waiting area. Numerous restaurant owners delay to add in a waiting area, believed that it is a waste of cherished potential table space. Moreover, taking this into account: that table space is merely valuable in the event that restaurant is full, and that is certainly when a waiting space is necessary to support the overflow. If your restaurant remains full almost all the time, clients will value the waiting space. When your dinning room is not full, that space mightn't be so treasured, anyway.

Consider putting the following in your waiting area:

· Stand Seats

· Reading material, for instance daily newspapers, new magazines and interesting books

· Excellent reviews and articles concerning your restaurant posted on the walls

· A bar area, so people can buy drinks while waiting

 

Entryway

Whether you consider it necessary or not your restaurant definitely needs a waiting area, contemplate including these next to entryway:

 Host platform. This is where client are welcomed on entering, as well as, where their customers name and party number is taken. The host's platform really should be very close to the door and the waiting area, so clients wouldn't have to look for it.

· Coat check. Throughout cold wintertime, customers might not exactly want to have their cumbersome coats at the table.

Merchandise. By exhibiting your merchandise and the gift records very close to your waiting area and funds register, you might encourage your customers to see the merchandise, for them to buy it when they are going out.

· Mints, Exclusively packaged foods and baked goods. Giving mints and gums, pre-packaged foods and baked goods in an exhibition case at the money register can boost impulse buys of packaged sauces, desserts as well as other foods as customers make their way out of the restaurants.

 

Server Stations

In big restaurants, server stations must be cleverly placed throughout the living area, so servers can more speedily meet the needs of the customers. There must be about one server station per three servers. Stations are usually stocked with these:

· POS working systems

Server aprons

· Set menu

Water stations with glass pitches

· Water jug

Tabletop crumbers

Check holders and tip trays

Server plates and tray stands

Tablecloths, flatware and tabletops provisions

 

Hiring a Professional

The above strategies may guide you as part of your design choices. Moreover, getting a professional restaurant design consultant or even a certified interior designer is rarely a bad idea. Turn to your local phonebook to consult with interior planning specialists in your area. Be sure to find out if they have any know-how in restaurant design, and if they've gotten different pictures in their collection. Interior designers who're only trained for home design may hurt your restaurant more than they assist it.

Guide your professional designer in the course of designing and adorning the front of the house to guarantee that the design would work for your market and supports your restaurant's concept and branding efforts.