When it comes to opening any new business, especially during the current COVID-19 crisis, you have to be at the top of your game. It’s not an undertaking that can be entered into lightly and as such, everything needs to be perfect if you are to make an impact in any industry.
Now, when it comes to the restaurant market all the points raised above are doubly relevant, this due chiefly to the fact that opening and keeping a restaurant afloat is tricky in the extreme.
The success rate of opening restaurants in the US is notoriously low. A recent report suggested that as many as 60% of those that open don’t make it through their first year and an astounding 80% go bust within five years.
Planning Your Layout
A crucial aspect of every restaurant is planning your layout and making sure that the layout matches the theme and ethos you are looking to match with your menu.
Working out how to make best use of the area you have, both inside and out, is pretty much the most important aspect of opening your restaurant, after perhaps the location of the restaurant itself.
You’ll have to make sure that the way the restaurant is designed and planned is not only aesthetically pleasing but also practical in terms of the delivery to your customers. Perhaps your eatery is all about fast service to customers and as such you’ll need the layout to be built with this in mind with clear access routes from kitchen to table.
Taking into Account Capacity
When it comes to your chairs, and tables, you will also need to consider how many people you will be looking to serve in a given time frame. This will greatly influence your bottom line and this, in turn, can affect the comfort of your customers.
For example you may look to pile many people into their seats, in an effort to make as much from your busy periods as possible. However you may do this in a way that negatively affects the experience your customers receive. Leading to a low return rate.
Decorative or Functional?
Now we come to the subject of the chairs. The detailing in your restaurant is important and you shouldn’t ignore something as crucial as the apparatus your customers will be sitting in during their time with you.
Now you might elect to be flashy with your chair design. Maybe you’ll look to push the budget on this aspect so that the chairs, and tables, make a distinct statement and are one of the things that can affect the enjoyment of the meal itself.
Think for instance if your customers are not comfortable when they are dining, this can lead, in some cases, to having such a negative experience that they don’t enjoy the meals they’ve been served, regardless of how good they may actually be.
Perhaps you think that your design ideas lean more to a level of comfort that sets the mood of your customers accordingly. Maybe it’s more important to give off a homely feel and as such you choose softly cushioned chairs.
You may also be considering what types of seating you’ll select for the bar area of your establishment and, as such, you’ll have to take into account issues such as the fact that bar stools are higher than counter stools and your bar itself may need to be raised to maximize comfort in what is a notoriously tricky area of the layout plans of a fledgling restaurant.
Minimalism Has Its Positives
A minimal set-up may become a far more common theme in new restaurants in the coming months and years and that’s due in no small part to the effect the Coronavirus has had on our lives. Even after restrictions are lifted, there will be those who feel more comfortable with their seating being further away from strangers.
This could lead to restaurants having deliberately lower capacity to cater to these needs, and possible recurring restrictions, and the seating will be affected accordingly.
It’s All About The Detailing
While the subject of seating in a restaurant may seem like a little thing, you’d be surprised at how important such detailing can be in the overall enjoyment of a customer’s visit to your diner or high-end eatery.
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