5 Restaurant Design Tips That Will Improve the Customer Experience
Restaurants are more than places people go to sit down and eat. In many ways, they are supposed to be a haven where people can dine, unwind, and feel at home. For some strange reason, many people still think they can scrape by cutting corners. But restaurants who don’t tick all the boxes these days often get left behind. Here are some design tips that will allow you to completely transform your customers’ experience.
Feature Green/Natural Plants
Adding indoor plants is an excellent way to add color and life to any environment, whether it’s an office, home or a restaurant. This is especially the case if it ties in with your restaurant’s theme. Complement the greenery with lots of natural light as well. Vary the landscape depending on the seating area so your clients can always get something new. However, make sure that the plants are well kept and that they aren’t positioned in a way that could cause leaves and other debris to fall onto patrons and their food!
Find a Compromise Between Seating Capacity and Ambience
This is a dilemma a lot of restaurant owners have to struggle with. Do you seat the highest possible number of people or do you space things out a bit and leave them room to breathe? The first thing you should do is calculate how many seated customers you need in order to break even. Then you should look at things like floor decoration, wait station positioning, and spacing between tables and see where you could add, remove, or rearrange seats. Try to arrange your dining area in a way that could accommodate twice your break-even point if you want to make sure you turn a profit.
Eliminate Seating in Bad Areas
You want as little bad seats as possible in your restaurant. Cramming one or two more couples isn’t worth the dissatisfaction of being seated at a bad table. Avoid any area that sees heavy traffic, like the kitchen, restrooms, or too close to the main entrance for instance.
Temperature Control and Ventilation
You won’t believe the impact a well-tempered room can have on the mood of your clients. Things like ventilation play an essential role as well. In the summer months, kitchens can generate a lot of heat and you don’t want all the aromas and smoke coming from the kitchen invading the dining room. So, make sure that you invest in an HVAC system that will be strong enough to keep everybody hot in the winter and cool in the summer.
Seating Options
Try to offer as many seating options as possible. Your seating options will also have an influence on which type of furniture you should be looking for. If it’s for a heavy seating area or workstations, make sure that you choose shapes that will facilitate more seating when looking for restaurant furniture for sale. If you want to create a more private section, then you could increase the spacing between tables and go for round table tops. The more options you can use, the more you’ll be able to maximize space and accommodate the varying needs of your clientele.
These few design ideas alone will make a huge difference to your customers’ experience. Always try to find ways to improve and make sure that you put yourself in your customers’ shoes so that you can craft the absolute best dining experience for them.
