A Guide to Restaurant Interior Designs

Consciously or subconsciously, the interior design of your restaurant will contribute to how much your customers enjoy their visit. To have your interior design supplement customer experience in a positive way then you’ll need to think about the flow of service, seating options, colour palettes, and lighting. Here’s why…

 Flow of Service

A mistake that you’ll want to avoid when redesigning your restaurant is failing to keep functionality at the forefront of your design. The most important factor here is ensuring a smooth flow of service, which usually entails a one-way system. There are a few changes that can be made to facilitate this:

• Having a spacious central channel through the middle of the restaurant, or around its perimeter.
• Utilising wall space by installing booths, allowing for this channel to have extra space, which will further encourage its usage.
• Ensuring that the space outside of the kitchen is clear for both incoming and outgoing traffic.

Varied Seating Options

Restaurants are increasingly choosing to vary their seating options as a way to ensure that customers have the experience they envisaged. Some restaurants will have an outside seating area, single-person stool spaces in front of the window, private booths against the wall, and conventional tables in the middle of the space. The key here is that this provides versatility so that anyone can enjoy the restaurant, whether they’ve come on their own, with a large group, or for a quick drink and a snack outside with a friend.

A Standout Colour Palette

Having a standout colour palette will keep the customer’s experience of the restaurant memorable. If you think about the most impressive restaurants you’ve visited, their colour palettes were likely unique. However, this doesn’t mean that you need to incorporate a lot of bright colours and fancy patterns. Instead, think about what kind of mood you’d like your restaurant to have and try to match it. This could mean having a subtle, sophisticated palette with muted tones and it could equally entail having poppy patterns with more contemporary colour schemes.

The Importance of Lighting

In the same way that your restaurant’s colour palette determines the mood of the restaurant, as does lighting. For private two-person booths, you’ll want dimmer lights to create an intimate ambience, whereas if you have single-person stools, perhaps in front of an open kitchen, then you’ll want brighter lights as this will be more of an active space. You should also consider how you intend to use lighting to subtly guide customers around the one-way system or to the toilets.

Carefully considering the interior design of your restaurant based on the ambience you’re looking to create can make all the difference when it comes to customer satisfaction. Having varied seating options, appropriate lighting, a memorable and fitting colour palette, and a practical flow of service will all contribute to how the customer consciously or subconsciously views their experience.

If you’re looking for specialist advice about designing for restaurants and hospitality, explore our accredited Designer Directory to find qualified experts in commercial interior design.