A guide to successful restaurant floor plans

Having a successful restaurant isn't just about serving great food or having a friendly staff, it's also about creating the kind of ambiance that will make your guests feel relaxed and your employees feel productive and safe. This article serves as a guide to successful restaurant floor plans.

Restaurant genre

Genre
Identify the genre and theme of the restaurant. Perhaps it's a place where brokers will meet to seal important business deals over lunch.
Maybe it's a family-friendly venue, where the servers are dressed as pirates. Another option would be to set the stage for a romantic evening with a posh bar, cosy booths and a platform for a smooth jazz combo.
Maybe an Internet cafe is more to your taste with funky furniture, a cakes counter with endless varieties of coffee. Dinner theatre calls for yet another concept, either a runway motif with dining set-up on either side, or "classroom" style with banquet tables that all face the stage. Or perhaps you have a fast food business plan in mind.

Colours

Colours Consider the colour scheme. Family-oriented restaurants should be lighter and brighter than evening venues for couples. The latter settings tend to gravitate toward deep greens, reds, blues and lots of dark woods. If your restaurant's focus is going to be on ethnic cuisine, the colours and furnishings will probably reflect the ambiance that one would find if they were actually dining in Barcelona, Paris and Germany. Look at some commercial kitchen's layouts to get more ideas.

Sketching

Sketches Using graph paper and a pencil, allocate some of your space to the reception area, the restrooms, the dining area and the kitchen. Where you decide to place your kitchen depends on whether the production aspects of the food constitute a "performance" or are best kept under wraps. Many successful restaurants have placed their cooking area centre-stage, so that patrons can actually watch their food being prepared either behind a glass wall or in the middle of the room.

Notes

Final word If you're not good at drawing, consider purchasing floor plans software program that will enable you to experiment with your restaurant design layout, without having to add extra money to your restaurant start-up costs. You can experiment with your restaurant kitchen layout and design and might stumble upon some excellent restaurant business ideas and plans whilst you do so.