Todos los derechos reservados 2024
Visual communication of a restaurant brand
For a restaurant to work, good interior design is not enough, more elements are needed. But of course, without a good interior design it will be difficult for the restaurant to be successful.
Restaurant concept development involves interior design, but also includes competitive and market research, emerging trends, financial models and what-if scenarios, branding and brand evolution, supply chain issues, and even brand portfolio management. Simply put, restaurant design considerations involve a variety of people, not just interior designers and architects.
For example, US franchise Starbucks has spent hundreds of millions of dollars perfecting what we see today in its latest restaurant prototype. It is an illusion to think that it could be duplicated for the cost of what a single unit could build today. But many companies think this way. To be successful, you need to consider the "soft" costs of development.
Below is a summary of what was understood in the investigation. In relation to the design process we consider that:
1. UNDERSTAND THE BUSINESS
It is the first factor to consider before starting restaurant design. Starting with the hospitality sector in general and ending with the niche of the restaurant that we are going to design in particular, that is, its concept and specific business model.
We understand interior design as a commercial weapon with great potential. We use interior design to get our clients to sell more, sell more expensive and sell more often. This would be impossible to achieve if, before sitting down to design restaurants, we did not understand the business model on which we are operating. There are three key elements that an interior designer who is dedicated to restaurant design must influence:
• Differentiation from the competition.
• Relevance for the client.
• Intensity of the emotional bond.
2. ANALYSIS OF THE KITCHEN
In addition to knowing the business in general, the particular environment in which the restaurant will operate and its objective or typical client, the type of cuisine of our restaurant must be dissected.
In restaurant design we have to know each of the main attributes of the kitchen to be correct.
With this, we not only reflect the personality of a kitchen with materials and colors, we also do it with the distribution of preparation areas, decorative elements, furniture, sensory marketing, among others; and of course with other factors that would have less to do with the design of the restaurant itself, such as customer service, the selection of personnel, suppliers, preparation of the menu, dishes, online and offline communication, etc.
3. AESTHETIC FUNCTIONALITY
An optimized restaurant requires clear functionalities, planned and in which the design contributes to optimizing them. In the design of restaurants we must take into account functionalities such as the following:
• Dishes that must come out of a certain place that is perfectly accessible and comfortably.
• Trips that should be shortened as much as possible.
• Necessarily hidden areas and transparent areas, intimate areas, public areas.
• Bells, cameras, cupboards and other functional furniture.
• Floors and furniture with the right touch.
Spot lighting, ambient lighting, indirect lighting.
• Optimization and versatility of seating and tables.
4. INTIMACY IN SPACE
The distribution of spaces and functionalities is fundamentally satisfied when it comes to guaranteeing a certain intimacy to the tables in the space. Although it is true that there is a type of restaurant that does not require it, the intimacy of the tables is one of the attributes most valued by customers and therefore a quality that must be paid attention to in restaurant design.
It is common to observe the opinions of how customers recommend, and in fact they choose a specific table to eat in a specific restaurant in the reservations and usually do so based on the intimacy attribute.
In any case, if required, it is the job of the interior designer to grant intimacy to the tables through design without the number of tables and/or diners per shift in the restaurant suffering.
5. COMFORT
Within the design of restaurants there are several items that seem to us to be of obligatory attention to ensure that a restaurant is comfortable both for its clients and for the team that works in it.
These are:
• Lighting: It is key for any business, but in the design of restaurants it can be decisive, for better or for worse. In a restaurant, the light must be just right, neither too much nor too little; and of course, quality. In other words, the light must be well planned to avoid, among other problems, annoying shadows, glare, shadowy areas, etc.
• Acoustics: Achieving a pleasant environment involves having control of the sound. Perhaps we think about the choice of music, knowing how to measure tempos and others, but other aspects apart from music affect the quality of the environment. A good example is reverberation, an element that is even more important than music and often largely forgotten in restaurant design.
In this aspect, in the design of restaurants, the choice of materials acquires great importance, with wood, fabrics and other absorbent finishes being suitable to mitigate such an annoying sensation. Of course, we have a number of specific products on the market that will allow us to control noise.
• Climatización: Renovación del aire e interiorismo sensorial - Una buena climatización es fundamental en la confortabilidad de cualquier negocio y así lo entendemos todos. Sin embargo, a menudo se descuida otro aspecto cuya importancia resulta capital en el diseño de restaurantes, la calidad el aire. Además de garantizar un clima agradable debemos asegurar que los visitantes puedan respirar un aire renovado y limpio que evite los malos y molestos olores que se crean inevitablemente en un restaurante. Por tanto, en diseño de restaurantes hemos de prestar suficiente atención a la instalación de renovación de aire y otorgarle al menos la misma importancia que a la climatización.
• Furniture: It seems logical and evident that the selection of furniture for restaurants, both for work and for living, must comply with a minimum of comfort. However, judging by what we see on a daily basis, many seem to want to kick customers out of their restaurants as soon as possible.
That said, it is also important to emphasize that there are certain types of restaurants and situations in which we must favor the rapid circulation of diners. And although this should not affect the comfort of the same while they remain in the restaurant, we must seek in these cases a balance between two conflicting objectives: comfort and rapid circulation of customers.
The choice of furniture for restaurants is one of the critical points of design. It is not strange to observe how sometimes the furniture of a restaurant is not aligned with the type of cuisine, nor with the rest of the restaurant's design, nor with its functionality, nor with the objective. This generates serious inconsistencies in the image and communication of the restaurant, but above all it implies a dysfunction in the generation of comfort for the client.
6. STORAGE NEEDS
Storage is an example of functional and operational design considerations not typically considered with an interior design curriculum.
Where design meets function is often a gap for restaurant designers without deep experience in the restaurant industry.
7. CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
In the current economic and social context, the client has infinite information and appropriate channels that allow him to compare at the click of a button and in a few seconds. Getting a customer to choose one or another restaurant can be a matter of luck, some conformists think, or a matter of small details, say those who will be successful in the future.
It should be noted that good restaurant design must be different, relevant and intense, and must always keep in mind the search for an optimal, different, relevant and intense customer experience. This philosophy will be the one that guides the long-term future of successful restaurants.
*If you are interested in more about this topic, I recommend you see the publication La Markesina
Share this:
Written and curated by Sarah Tió | Publicado el 17 de Abril, 2021.
