The pandemic brought the restaurant industry to a halt, with a lot of previously successful locations having to close their doors for good. In the last few years since the pandemic, the restaurant industry has soared to become one of the top growing industries in the world. Full service restaurants grew to over $78 billion in revenue in 2023 alone. With so many new places opening at a rapid rate, restaurant owners are looking for that extra edge over the competition to keep returning customers happy and to attract a new customer base.
Enter the world of restaurant design.
Though you may already have a vision for the type of space you want to create, you should not attempt to get there on your own. Your restaurant needs a designer to help you put all the puzzle pieces together. Dining out is an experience with several factors aside from food that most of the public considers when choosing to eat a restaurant. Ambience, atmosphere, prices, and customer experience are some of the deciding factors for most adults. The top factor listed was price, with customer ratings being a close second.
While we can’t help with your restaurant’s prices, we have some tips to consider in your restaurant’s design.
Get The Most Out Of Your Space
If you’re researching restaurant designs, you’re probably familiar with some of the buzzwords around restaurant designs, like “maximizing space.” Maximizing space is exactly what it sounds like. A restaurant designer will help you build a floor plan for your restaurant that helps you to utilize all of the available space to help your restaurant run efficiently. We mentioned in another post about bar floor plans that having an experienced kitchen manager review the floor plans can help to set up the kitchen for maximum efficiency for workers. Other things to consider will be where your hosting station is in relation to the entrance, how far your tables and booths are from one another, following ADA compliance so that disabled and elderly patrons can enter and exit with ease, and allocating enough space for storage and supplies. It’s important to consult with an expert before breaking ground on your new restaurant.
Brand Identity
You’re probably exhausted hearing about your brand’s identity. Unfortunately, brand identity plays a strong part in restaurant design. In fact, 60% of those polled in a recent survey suggested that ambience plays an important part of their dining experience. Ambience is your brand. Your restaurant should be designed with your customers in mind. Branding is a way for your customers to associate having a pleasant meal and great dining experience with your company. Working with a designer who understands your customer-base and can craft a design to appeal to them is an important part of branding and restaurant design. The goal is to have happy customers return and to attract a new customer base by word of mouth and reputation. Building a brand into your design helps with that.
Ambience
Speaking of buzzwords, ambience describes the atmosphere and mood of your restaurant. A restaurant designer will know how to enhance your location from the smallest details like which type of lighting is best for a restaurant, to what sort of speakers should I be using? A designer can help to dot the t’s of these details while also helping to choose colors and a table layout that can be more emotionally engaging for your customers. This is a great study that goes into depth about how the colors you choose for your restaurant design can influence your customers moods and emotions.
Go With The Flow
Customer flow is another crucial part of a restaurant’s design. There are few things worse than when you’re hungry and there’s either no waiting room at the restaurant, or you do manage to be seated, but your table isn’t easy to access. Worse more, having to go to the restroom and squeezing through a crowd of people. A properly designed restaurant should consult an interior designer who can help them to choose proper spacing for tables and booths, as well as utilizing space elsewhere so that customers can walk around freely. The most important part of spatial requirements of course are fire exits, which we’ll cover next.
Fire Exits, Regulations, and Being Up To Code
We’ve saved the best for last. Fire exits, regulations, health and building codes. Every town and city has regulations and building codes that need to be followed for any business. Depending on how many customers your restaurant can seat at capacity, you’ll need to have the proper amount of fire exits. Restaurants are also required to follow ADA guidelines about having accessible entrances and seating for disabled patrons. Restaurant designs also need to take health codes into consideration so that they’ll be approved by the Department of Health. Regulations can differ depending on your location, so please be sure to find your city or state’s health department and consult a professional to help you navigate it.
Whether you’re doing a minimal remodel of an existing restaurant, or starting completely from scratch, your restaurant more than likely needs a designer. If you’re looking for customized designs for your restaurant, or need to make a few tweaks to get an existing space up to code, contact us.
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