Restaurant Interior Design: Because Your Restaurant's Not Just About the Meal

Many people fail to consider interior design when running their restaurant. Restaurant interior design must consider the needs of its staff and customers as they move about, as much as it must evidence some individual character.

Price, value, location, service and, of course, the food are all areas which restaurateurs must optimise if they are to make back their investment. There isnt a restaurant owner in the land who doesnt work carefully to ensure that the quality of their food matches the price tag on the menu . They wouldnt dream of opening their doors if they didnt think their service was suitable for the area in which they were situated. Its surprising, then, the number for whom restaurant interior design is only a secondary consideration.

The food must be good and the price right, but it wont matter if people dont want to be IN your restaurant. Worse still is if the layout of your restaurant is such that it is not practical for an efficient operation. It won't be a pleasant place to be if waiting staff are constantly having to squeeze past diners or if one table has to put up with people queuing up next to them for the toilet.

The first thing a restaurant interior designer will do when hired to design or redesign your restaurant is to consider the ergonomics of the place. This means to create a layout which is suitable for human use and allows (even encourages) efficient operation. Restaurants are commonly and necessarily located in prime retail locations, meaning that space is limited. Failure to adapt to this limited space can be disastrous. If waiting staff have to squeeze between tables or if they have to pass through the same gap in order to reach a number of tables, accidents are likely to happen. Staff could collide, guests might shift their chairs out suddenly, etc. Good, ergonomic restaurant interior design will ensure that the distance a waiter or waitress has to carry plates is as small as possible. In multi-layered restaurants, a good old fashioned dumb waiter prevents staff having to carry trays up and down stairs. Some restaurants - notably sushi restaurants - reduce the distance food has to be transported to the bare minimum by making the cooking area the focus of the restaurant. With many customers sat around the bars that surround the cooking area, cooking staff can pass plates directly to them. This also reduces costs, as fewer waiting staff are needed

Even if you already have an existing property, it's worth considering how restaurant interior design can help you. Are there any small, but niggly problems that you have noticed with the operation of your restaurant's layout? Perhaps it just needs a spruce up: something to give it a new lease of life. It is the design that makes a great restaurant as much as the area in which you have to work; the Ivy is down a relatively minor side street and yet is one of Londons most exclusive places to dine.

People like to feel they're eating somewhere special. Unless you want your restaurant to look like it is part of a chain, then a restaurant interior designer will work hard to ensure it has its own character. In extreme cases, one can end up with restaurants such as New Yorks famous BED (now closed), where diners ate reclined on four poster beds. More commonly, this can mean carefully thought out design choices which reflect some internally consistent thought.

However large or small your restaurant, it has to be attractive. Food tastes better when people are enjoying themselves. Great design means yours isnt just a great restaurant; its a destination.

Restaurant Interior Design: Because Your Restaurant