share
Facebook
Twitter
Google +
Myspace
FeedBar Design
bar designing
6 months ago
Interior Design: The Missing Piece from Your Restaurant
An ugly restaurant is a failing restaurant. The restaurant industry is infamously competitive. Price, value, location, service and, of course, the food are all areas which restaurateurs must optimise if they are to make back their investment. There isn’t a restaurant owner in the land who doesn’t work carefully to ensure that the quality of their food matches the price tag on the menu . They wouldn’t dream of opening their doors if they didn’t think their service was suitable for the area in which they were situated. It’s surprising, then, the number who think that restaurant interior design is only a secondary consideration.
The food must be good and the price right, but it won’t matter if people don’t want to be IN your restaurant or, worse, if the layout of your restaurant is such that bottle necks are constantly forming, waiting staff cannot get between tables easily or the noise from the hand dryers in the toilets drowns out conversation.
The first thing a restaurant interior designer will do when hired to design or redesign your restaurant is to consider the ergonomics of the place. This means to create a layout which is suitable for human use as this will lead to efficient operation. Restaurants are commonly and necessarily located in prime retail locations, meaning that space is limited. Failure to adapt to this limited space can be disastrous. If waiting staff have to squeeze between tables or if they have to pass through the same gap in order to reach a number of tables, accidents are likely to happen. Staff could collide, guests might shift their chairs out suddenly, etc. Good, ergonomic restaurant interior design will ensure that the distance a waiter or waitress has to carry plates is as small as possible. In multi-layered restaurants, a good old fashioned dumb waiter prevents staff having to carry trays up and down stairs. Some restaurants - notably sushi restaurants - reduce the distance food has to be transported to the bare minimum by making the cooking area the focus of the restaurant. With many customers sat around the bars that surround the cooking area, cooking staff can pass plates directly to them. This also reduces costs, as fewer waiting staff are needed
Restaurant interior designers can work with you whether you are building an entirely new set of premises, completely redesigning a newly leased property or just giving your old restaurant an overhaul. Each offers its own set of challenges and rewards, but that’s OK; compromises are terrible, but restrictions are wonderful. Restrictions tell a designer the size and shape of their canvas and what colour paints they have to use. It is the design that makes a great restaurant as much as the area in which you have to work; the Ivy is down a relatively minor side street and yet is one of London’s most exclusive places to dine.
People like to feel they're eating somewhere special. Unless you want your restaurant to look like a McBurger outlet, then its interior design has to have somethingt that marks it out as unique. In extreme cases, one can end up with restaurants such as New York’s famous BED (now closed), where diners ate reclined on four poster beds. More commonly, this can mean carefully thought out design choices which reflect some internally consistent thought.
However large or small your restaurant, it has to be attractive. Food tastes better when people are enjoying themselves. Great design means yours isn’t just a great restaurant; it’s a destination.
The food must be good and the price right, but it won’t matter if people don’t want to be IN your restaurant or, worse, if the layout of your restaurant is such that bottle necks are constantly forming, waiting staff cannot get between tables easily or the noise from the hand dryers in the toilets drowns out conversation.
The first thing a restaurant interior designer will do when hired to design or redesign your restaurant is to consider the ergonomics of the place. This means to create a layout which is suitable for human use as this will lead to efficient operation. Restaurants are commonly and necessarily located in prime retail locations, meaning that space is limited. Failure to adapt to this limited space can be disastrous. If waiting staff have to squeeze between tables or if they have to pass through the same gap in order to reach a number of tables, accidents are likely to happen. Staff could collide, guests might shift their chairs out suddenly, etc. Good, ergonomic restaurant interior design will ensure that the distance a waiter or waitress has to carry plates is as small as possible. In multi-layered restaurants, a good old fashioned dumb waiter prevents staff having to carry trays up and down stairs. Some restaurants - notably sushi restaurants - reduce the distance food has to be transported to the bare minimum by making the cooking area the focus of the restaurant. With many customers sat around the bars that surround the cooking area, cooking staff can pass plates directly to them. This also reduces costs, as fewer waiting staff are needed
Restaurant interior designers can work with you whether you are building an entirely new set of premises, completely redesigning a newly leased property or just giving your old restaurant an overhaul. Each offers its own set of challenges and rewards, but that’s OK; compromises are terrible, but restrictions are wonderful. Restrictions tell a designer the size and shape of their canvas and what colour paints they have to use. It is the design that makes a great restaurant as much as the area in which you have to work; the Ivy is down a relatively minor side street and yet is one of London’s most exclusive places to dine.
People like to feel they're eating somewhere special. Unless you want your restaurant to look like a McBurger outlet, then its interior design has to have somethingt that marks it out as unique. In extreme cases, one can end up with restaurants such as New York’s famous BED (now closed), where diners ate reclined on four poster beds. More commonly, this can mean carefully thought out design choices which reflect some internally consistent thought.
However large or small your restaurant, it has to be attractive. Food tastes better when people are enjoying themselves. Great design means yours isn’t just a great restaurant; it’s a destination.
7 months ago
Looks or Practicality: Which is More Important When Designing a Bar?
There are hundreds of bars, clubs and pubs out there and each one will be subtly different in its design. Although we might take the presence of the bar for granted, great thought goes into its design. This article looks at the different requirements of a good bar.
Bars are undeniably a dominant feature of a wide range of places. Temporary bars are required for marquee parties, for weddings and even for village fetes, whilst more permanent fixtures are required for bars pubs and clubs across the UK and actually the world. Whilst many of us take the presence of a bar in any one of these locations for granted, the reality is that a lot of thought and effort goes into bar design in order to ensure it does a great job. But it's not just as simple as putting a few bottles behind a bar. How do you actually go about setting up a bar? The old conflict between those who pine for the most beautiful aesthetics and design and those who seek to maximise bar productivity and operations rears its head. This article considers how you can balance function and aesthetics when it comes to deciding what makes a good bar.
Aesthetics
One of the most important aspects of bar design is the aesthetics of the bar i.e. how it looks. In some places design is obvious; clubs in high competition sites such as London, New York and Paris have to create some particularly outre "wow!" factor in order to win consumers. That's how you end up with fish tanks under the floor and a tree in the middle of the place. Whilst great looking bars in clubs often make it into our papers and magazines, a good looking bar is equally important in other contexts too. An outdated and ugly bar, for example, will neither attract customers no encourage repeat business. If a customer is going to enter your pub or bar you don't want them to immediately comment on how unattractive it is. Whilst how the bar looks is important this does not mean it needs to be anything wildly out of the ordinary. It just needs to be clean and contextually attractive. By this I mean that the bar must fit its character and environment. If it is an old pub the bar should look traditional and wooden, for example, whilst in a modern champagne bar this would look rather odd. In this environment perhaps a stainless steel bar may look more attractive. Overall then whilst the bar must look be attractive, this does not mean it has to look weird or wonderful, attractive and contextually appropriate is enough!
Functionality
For every person who argues visual appearance should be a design team’s dominant concern, there is another who would argue its functionality should have more significance. The barman’s tools, the drinks and the glasses all need to be within easy reach of the user in order to operate as efficiently as possible. Get this wrong and over the course of an evening fewer people could end up getting served as a result, which means less money and even less repeat business if people have to wait for a long time to wait to get served. Along with thinking about the barman’s requirements it is also necessary to think about how the customer will use the bar. Is it going to be a sitting bar, or a serving only bar? If it is the latter then make sure equipment is spaced evenly along the bar so there are as many "order points". Ideally the bar will draw them to an order point rather than have people waiting in a horizontal line which is always problematic for the barman. Finally, a useful piece of bar design which is very functional indeed is a mirror. It not only allows the barman to see what is going on behind him when he is preparing the drinks, such as the arrival of new customers, but it also allows those ordering their drinks to see what is going on in the rest of the room and therefore not have their back to the bar which makes it difficult for the barman.
Conclusion
Whilst it has been seen that both functionality and aesthetic appearances are both important there is often conflict between their relative importance, and bar design is all about finding a compromise between the two. It is inevitable that the funkiest looking bars may also be the most impractical ones for barmen to actually use whilst the most functional of bars may be extremely unattractive. Before you begin to panic about getting the right balance however, remember that there are a range of bar design companies out there to help you achieve the right looking bar for you which operates efficiently as well.
Bars are undeniably a dominant feature of a wide range of places. Temporary bars are required for marquee parties, for weddings and even for village fetes, whilst more permanent fixtures are required for bars pubs and clubs across the UK and actually the world. Whilst many of us take the presence of a bar in any one of these locations for granted, the reality is that a lot of thought and effort goes into bar design in order to ensure it does a great job. But it's not just as simple as putting a few bottles behind a bar. How do you actually go about setting up a bar? The old conflict between those who pine for the most beautiful aesthetics and design and those who seek to maximise bar productivity and operations rears its head. This article considers how you can balance function and aesthetics when it comes to deciding what makes a good bar.
Aesthetics
One of the most important aspects of bar design is the aesthetics of the bar i.e. how it looks. In some places design is obvious; clubs in high competition sites such as London, New York and Paris have to create some particularly outre "wow!" factor in order to win consumers. That's how you end up with fish tanks under the floor and a tree in the middle of the place. Whilst great looking bars in clubs often make it into our papers and magazines, a good looking bar is equally important in other contexts too. An outdated and ugly bar, for example, will neither attract customers no encourage repeat business. If a customer is going to enter your pub or bar you don't want them to immediately comment on how unattractive it is. Whilst how the bar looks is important this does not mean it needs to be anything wildly out of the ordinary. It just needs to be clean and contextually attractive. By this I mean that the bar must fit its character and environment. If it is an old pub the bar should look traditional and wooden, for example, whilst in a modern champagne bar this would look rather odd. In this environment perhaps a stainless steel bar may look more attractive. Overall then whilst the bar must look be attractive, this does not mean it has to look weird or wonderful, attractive and contextually appropriate is enough!
Functionality
For every person who argues visual appearance should be a design team’s dominant concern, there is another who would argue its functionality should have more significance. The barman’s tools, the drinks and the glasses all need to be within easy reach of the user in order to operate as efficiently as possible. Get this wrong and over the course of an evening fewer people could end up getting served as a result, which means less money and even less repeat business if people have to wait for a long time to wait to get served. Along with thinking about the barman’s requirements it is also necessary to think about how the customer will use the bar. Is it going to be a sitting bar, or a serving only bar? If it is the latter then make sure equipment is spaced evenly along the bar so there are as many "order points". Ideally the bar will draw them to an order point rather than have people waiting in a horizontal line which is always problematic for the barman. Finally, a useful piece of bar design which is very functional indeed is a mirror. It not only allows the barman to see what is going on behind him when he is preparing the drinks, such as the arrival of new customers, but it also allows those ordering their drinks to see what is going on in the rest of the room and therefore not have their back to the bar which makes it difficult for the barman.
Conclusion
Whilst it has been seen that both functionality and aesthetic appearances are both important there is often conflict between their relative importance, and bar design is all about finding a compromise between the two. It is inevitable that the funkiest looking bars may also be the most impractical ones for barmen to actually use whilst the most functional of bars may be extremely unattractive. Before you begin to panic about getting the right balance however, remember that there are a range of bar design companies out there to help you achieve the right looking bar for you which operates efficiently as well.