Restaurant Furniture Blog

How flexible is your restaurant tables layout? If someone came to you wanting to know if you could cater their wedding reception - what would your answer be? And when push comes to shove and the big day arrives, how quickly could you set up for the occasion?

Of course, not all restaurants are geared to cater for special occasions, yet it could be an untapped market in your area - a chance to increase profits missed because you haven’t factored it into your restaurant aims.

There is actually a serious lack of suitable dining facilities when it comes to special occasions. Many groups looking to hold functions wind up using halls or other buildings - all requiring expensive set up and take down costs along with external caterers delivering the food to the site.

Your restaurant may well be in a position to tackle this market. It will depend on what sort of restaurant furniture you have and how flexible your restaurant tables layout is. As a simple guide, ask yourself the following - ‘can I set my tables up banquet style’ and ‘how quickly can I set up and restore’?

Most restaurants use square or rectangular tables so putting tables together to form a banquet style arrangement is not difficult. If you offer a traditional banquet setup for the guests of honor with standard table layouts for the guests, setup can be done quite quickly.

Now have another look at your restaurant. Considering the basic requirements for a special occasion - could you cater for that occasion with ease? The majority of restaurants could. Whether or not you want to is of course a different matter.

For new restaurateurs, including the ability to cater for special occasions may just give your new business the lift it requires. If guests at the function are happy with the experience, they may just come back as regular patrons of your restaurant.

In a way, it makes good business sense. Someone is paying you to cater for a special occasion - for you it is a great way to impress the guests, if you like, with a hidden marketing tool. These possibilities are there simply because you chose the right restaurant tables layout from the beginning.