Restaurant Furniture Blog

I don’t have to remind most people that we are in the middle of winter right now and it’s pretty darn cold. No one likes to eat while feeling cold so does your restaurant furniture layout take advantage of the warm spots in your restaurant? Or does it, like some restaurants I have been to recently, place diners in the path of cooling breezes (cooling in summer, chilling in winter)?

If I can get one message across to restaurant owners, it is this: look at your restaurant furniture layout from a diner’s perspective, not your own. You can stand in the kitchen and look across the dining room and feel everything looks great. Go and sit in all the chairs - then tell me if everything is great. What can you see; what can you hear; and what can you feel? All three are important questions and you need to address them.

Diners are affected by temperature. If they are too hot or too cold they will not return. Diners want to come and enjoy a meal and, generally speaking, the company of another person. They don’t want to be chilled nor do they want to be roasted.

Diners want to hear each other. Diners that cannot hear each other because of kitchen or air conditioning noise will also stay away. They want to be able to talk to each other without having to shout.

Diners want to feel comfortable. They don’t want to feel cold drafts nor do they want to feel others brushing past them to get to or from their tables.

Viewing your restaurant furniture layout from a diner’s perspective means you are putting their interests first - and so you should. They are, after all, the customers; the people paying the bills; and the people that are keeping your business in business.