Restaurant Furniture Blog

One of the most important things that you can do when you’re planning to launch a restaurant is to make an effort to think through your restaurant furniture layout. There are a number of reasons for this, of course; the most important of these reasons, however, is that your restaurant furniture layout is going to have an impact on your bottom line and your overall success.

There was a story in one newspaper that addressed the relative successes of two restaurants that were ultimately similar - except in the way that the owners set them up and approached their businesses:

Each owner has longed to own a restaurant. Jim, owner of the steakhouse, wanted a business that was a restaurant. Mark, the bistro owner, wanted a restaurant that was a business. Do you see the difference? Jim, first and foremost, wanted to own a business. Mark wanted to enjoy the experience of owning a fine restaurant.

Let’s look at the restaurant layout. The steakhouse has a spacious feel. Adequate space between the tables allows a degree of privacy. However, there is no wasted space.

Mark, on the other hand, designed his restaurant to please his taste. It has a great deal of wasted space. For example, the restrooms are twice as large as they need to be. The shape of the room does not allow efficient spacing of the tables. Walkways to the ends of the restaurant are extremely wide. The restaurant is about 30 percent larger than it should be for the number of tables. This space must be heated, cooled, insured and rented.

Now, when you look at that information, part of the issue is fairly straightforward; the writer was discussing the impact of the owner’s business sense. However, what you’ll want to check out about isn’t just the approach that they took - it’s about the fact that their approach had an impact on the way that each layed out their restaurants.

The restaurant furniture layout that gives the customers what they need - just enough room, but not too much - is having greater success than a restaurant that was laid out with too much space. In both cases, the chosen restaurant furniture layout had an impact; when you’re planning your restaurant, you’ll want to make sure that you keep in mind the impact you want it to have.