Price, value, location, service and, of course, the food are all areas which restaurateurs must optimise if they are to make back their often considerable 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. Worse still is if the layout of your restaurant is such that it is not practical for an efficient operation. It won't be a pleasant place to be if waiting staff are constantly having to squeeze past diners or if one table has to put up with people queuing up next to them for the toilet.

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. They will ensure that the layout of your space is optimised for efficient operation. Most restaurants rely to a large degree on passing trade and for this reason are generally to be found in prime retail locations. Renting or buying such space is inevitably expensive and so the size of the restaurant 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. Many restaurants are designed to ensure there are multiple paths for waiting staff to take to most tables, so the chances of collisions or staff have to queue are reduced

Even if you already have an existing property, it's worth considering how restaurant interior design can help you. Are there any small, but niggly problems that you have noticed with the operation of your restaurant's layout? Perhaps it just needs a spruce up: something to give it a new lease of life. 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 a restaurant interior designer will work hard to ensure it has its own character. 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.

No matter the size of your restaurant, it needs to be a place people WANT to be. Food tastes better when people are enjoying themselves. Great design means yours isn’t just a great restaurant; it’s a destination.