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Knowing the foundation of your restaurant interior design is essential in improving your customer dining experience. Customer satisfaction is not just about good food and outstanding service, it is also about how they feel towards your restaurant’s atmosphere.
The current circumstances make it challenging for you and the rest of the Restaurant Industry to adapt and move forward with the new dining experience that the customers are looking for. Customers are not just after crafty and bold interior design, but they are now more concerned about their safety.
These are the types of changes in market behavior that you need to consider to provide an exemplary holistic dining experience for your customers where they will feel safe with social interactions. Providing them a safe place where they can bask in comfort while dining should be one of your priorities.
Working with interior design for your restaurant doesn’t require you to be an expert, but there’s also no harm in consulting experts as they can give useful and helpful insights about your restaurant’s interior.
You must have an idea on what are the things you need to work on and why you need to work them out. If you opt to hire a professional, you must know the basic ways to amaze your customers using the interior design of your restaurant.
Restaurant Interior Designing Tips
Everything about your restaurant is functional. Starting from your employees up to your signage, everything is there for a reason. That goes for your interior design as well, it helps you provide your customers a feeling of safety, comfort, and delight about your restaurant.
Choose a theme
To get things started, you should decide what type of theme and atmosphere you want to offer your customers. You will work your interior design around this central theme. It should reflect your concept to help with your branding. As mentioned, everything in a restaurant has its functions that affect customer experience, your interior design is responsible for the comfort and atmosphere but it can help with your marketing as well.
Research what are the trends that are associated with your concept and create a unique theme out of it. It is always a good move to provide customers something fresh for their eyes, but they should also have a sense of security and familiarity from it. Find the right mix and apply it to your interior, but you must not lose your brand along the process.
Mix the right colors
Using different color schemes for your branding may just seem natural like it’s just how you always do things. But there’s more to color schemes other than just being part of your interior design. It holds a lot of potentials that can influence customer’s buying decisions and has an impact on your restaurant and takeaway’s success.
The use of color for restaurants is all about psychology. Integrating the right color schemes with your interior designing influences the customer’s senses that positively impacts their experience in your restaurant. An estimated 85% of consumers consider that color is their major driver in buying out of a brand or buying that specific product itself.
Here’s a brief overview of the different types of color schemes that are used for the restaurant interior.
- Light color scheme – Colors such as ivory, beige, light gray, pale yellow, and white fall under this category. Proper use of these colors helps a certain space appear bigger than its actual size and gives diners a relaxed and comfortable vibe that’s not ideal if you aim to have a high turnover rate.
- Strong color scheme – The right amount of dark colors can provide a romantic and intimate ambiance for your restaurant. That’s why romantic bistros and bars are commonly using this type of color scheme. But too much intensity can lead people to feel cramped and confined in your restaurant. Just be careful on using colors such as dark green, navy blue, crimson, purple, and brown.
- Warm color scheme – Also known as the strong appetite stimulants scheme. This is mainly because the visual stimulation they provide increases the level of hunger, comfortability, and energy of people. Just use the perfect combination of red, yellow, and orange if you want a higher turnover rate, because these bright colors exasperate customers leading them not to stay for a long period. Fast food and casual dining establishments often use this type of color scheme.
- Cool color scheme – Green and turquoise are considered part of this color scheme. Cool colors give customers a sense of relaxation and a healthier lifestyle. With green in sight, consumers are pushed into thinking that they are eating healthier food as it is often associated with leafy vegetables.
- Earthy color scheme – Trendy restaurants and cafes are the most popular types of restaurants that use this type of color scheme. Brown, umber, dark orange, and olive green are some of the colors that provide a welcoming ambiance for customers.
- Dark color scheme – Since they do not usually exist naturally in a form of food, these colors are often associated with appetite suppressants. Colors such as black, blue, dark gray, and violet are connected to poisonous or rotten food which is not edible.
Use the right amount of light
Colors and lighting work closely. You must know which parts of your restaurant need proper and a good amount of lighting. Lighting is the main setter of ambiance and atmosphere for your restaurant. While natural lighting is always a perfect choice, you still have to adjust it according to the concept of your restaurant.
If you’re running a fine-dining romantic restaurant, providing just ample lighting with the help of candles can help you achieve the romantic setting you’re aiming for. A restaurant bar during its happy hour should have good lighting for its bar to highlight and encourage customers to check the bar.
Always consider HVAC
Your heating, ventilation, and air conditioning play a huge factor in the success of your interior design. Heat, aroma, and smoke are the things that you should always look out for. Does your restaurant concept and theme allow you to let your customer smell the aroma coming from the kitchen? Are you sure that the heat from the kitchen will not affect the temperature in your dining area?
It’s an important part of interior designing that’s often overlooked because it’s not about art and aesthetics, but you also have to consider how the function of your HVAC can affect the dining experience of your customers. Especially during the extreme seasons, you must ensure that your customers will not feel cramped during summertime, and enough warmth during wintertime.
While working on your interior design, you must stay rooted in your goal- to provide comfort for your customers. Your colors, lighting, and even furniture won’t help you if your customers feel too hot or too cold inside your establishment. Maintaining the proper process for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning is a must.
Review the layout
Before you start adding different types of equipment, furniture, and fixtures inside your restaurant, you must consider how the layout of your interior will affect the design you have in mind. Spacing and placement of furniture should be systematically arranged to maintain order in your restaurant. There are different elements you need to work out on.
- Bad tables – Areas like your kitchen area, restroom area, and near entrance area are not the most pleasing areas to put a table to. Understandably, you want to squeeze in as many customers as you want, and you must discover other ways to achieve it.
It is not ideal that you completely get rid of it because it will be such a huge waste of space, but minimizing it is a great way to take care of your customers. Take a time to sit on every chair, observe the entire dining area, and identify how the areas will affect the customer’s dining experience.
- Spacing – After working on the areas that need to be avoided, you must check out the current spacing of your available areas. Will the furniture you have in mind fit just right? Is the space allowance enough to avoid unnecessary disturbances from other guests? Can your restaurant staff move freely within the space that you provide them? Designing a restaurant is about making every factor work its functions effectively.
There are lots of things that are affected by spacing. And every space is workable, you just need to incorporate the proper placement and size of your furniture to make it happen. Cramping your customers is not how you can provide them a comfortable dining experience.
- Accessibility – Create a space where everyone can have an enjoyable dining experience. Access to wheelchairs and other equipment for people with disabilities should be taken into consideration while working on your spacing. Every customer adds value to your restaurant, you must also give value to every customer that you have.
- Storage areas – One of the most common mistakes in interior design for restaurants is that they always put storage areas last. It should be one of the first things you should figure out because it’s a vital part of your operations. Storage affects your inventory and waste management. If you want to control your food costs, your storage area should be in a space that’s accessible for your kitchen staff.
It should not be too cramped as there would be a lot of circumstances where a lot of kitchen staff will be needing something from your storage room. It should be placed where the workflow of your kitchen staff won’t get disrupted.
It should be strategically placed in the back area of the restaurant for you to handle deliveries easily. As for the amount of storage space, you can review your purchasing process to help you determine how much space you’ll be needing.
- Alfresco – Securing the right permits, you may consider offering outdoor dining to your customers. Your outdoor space should be meticulously designed as well. Incorporate all the necessary colors, lighting equipment, and spacing to ensure that your customers will still have a great dining experience outside.
Be mindful with furniture and fixtures
When was the last time you checked your furniture? Are your tables and chairs still in their best condition? You must always ensure that your customers will not sway back and forth on one of your chairs or they’ll have a hard time enjoying their food because their table is not balanced.
Mindfully choose furniture and fixtures that will complement the theme of your restaurant. Color is an important factor, but size plays the biggest factor. Always take note of your available space to avoid waste of investment.
Paintings and table centerpieces also play an important role in setting the right mood for your restaurant. Huge windows, wooden and leather chairs, even your tablewares are part of our interior design. If you choose wooden chairs for you, they should be polished and painted smoothly. For leather chairs, your air conditioning should be spot on to avoid an unpleasant customer experience.
Work with walls and ceilings
If you’re thinking that your ceilings and walls have nothing to do with your customer dining experience, then it’s time to change that mindset. Incorporating patterns on it can affect and stimulate your customers’ sense. It always comes down to psychology.
There are certain color combinations and patterns that positively impact the human brain, while others cause confusion and trigger unpleasant emotions. But you don’t have to play it too safe, don’t be afraid to get creative and show your passion through your wall and ceiling designs.
Pay attention to the little details
Menu, silverwares, even napkin holders are also part of your interior design. It should always be in its best condition, and line with your theme. For your menu, associate the colors that you used on your overall interior design. Work on your menu’s typography, language, size, layout, and high-quality photos, and make sure that it still reflects your branding philosophies. It should be arranged logically and best-selling menu items should be highlighted properly. Your menu is a great part of your marketing, it’s a powerful tool that can create endless opportunities for you and your restaurant.
Silverwares should also blend just right according to your concept. Contemporary restaurants are trying to be creative by using colored and matte silverware. There are also environmental-friendly types of utensils that you can use if you want to reduce your carbon footprint.
Monitor the restroom situation
A well-lit, clean, and good-smelling bathroom is always a safe space for your customers. It’s called the comfort room for a reason. Even restaurant interior designers, know that restrooms play a vital role in interior design. Every space in your restaurant is an extension of your brand, this is the same for your restrooms.
Keep it clean, well-stocked, and easy to locate. All bathroom equipment such as flushes, sinks, and hand-dryers should be functioning just right. A dirty restroom can badly hurt the overall health of your restaurant and cleanliness will be in question.
Aside from working on maintaining your restrooms, it should also recreate the experience of your customers from the dining area. Not that you’re expecting them to dine there as well, but associating the right mix of colors, patterns, and logos can help you preserve the brand retention that you’ve worked so hard on your dining area.
Be wary of how sounds travel
Are your staff still communicating order tickets verbally? Are you sure that your customers don’t hear it from the dining area? All the shouting and unnecessary noise should be kept away from your common areas. Sound and music is an important key to set a certain mood.
If you want to increase the intimacy inside your restaurant, playing your most romantic playlist should do the trick. If you’re a family restaurant that’s most popular for brunches and afternoon tea, the right amount of mellow music will be a great way to lock in the mood.
Be mindful of the volume that you’ll apply to your music. A lively crowd preferred loud and live music, while there were crowds who wanted relaxation and comfort over anything else. Understand the needs of your current and target market to determine the right type of music you can use for your restaurant.
Keep it photograph-worthy
There’s a more popular term for this, keeping your interior design insta-worthy is a great way to attract customers especially those who are in the younger generation. Millennials and Generation Zs are always trying to step-up their insta-game and though your restaurant interior ideas are mostly functional, if it’s still aesthetically-pleasing, you can expect a lot of them coming to your restaurant.
You also have to design strategically. Working a lot on the design of your entrance and entryway is a great investment. It’s the first thing that captures the interest of your customers, that’s why your entrance or store-front must have a strong visual.
Working for your design to be photo-friendly is a great way to set up your social media marketing.
