Cooking Up a Restaurant Floor Plan

The style of a diner is essential to its success. Customers won’t want to spend time at a restaurant where the cuisine and beverages are great, but the environment is unpleasant. A good flow to your restaurant’s floor layout may ensure that it works well.

The fact that you require a decent layout is one thing; reaching that aim is another. To get the best results, your Restaurant Floor Plan should find the right balance between client comfort and the amount of space needed to provide service and make sales. Your bar’s floor plan should be designed and optimized with simple measures in mind.

Gather your measuring tape, enough parchment, and a pen if you’re free to start and improve your restaurant’s floor layout. Let’s get started with it!

So, What Exactly is a Restaurant Floor Plan

A floor plan for a restaurant is simply a diagram of the different areas included inside the restaurant. This covers the dining room, the table arrangements, the toilets, the kitchen, the staff spaces, and all entries and exits to the building. Your restaurant’s floor design should include any outside areas if the establishment has them.

Imagine the process of restaurant floor planning as a form of choreography or air traffic control. It is essential to orchestrate the commotion that results from customers entering and exiting the establishment while employees are delivering and clearing an endless supply of plates, baskets, silverware, and stemware.

Importance of Having a Restaurant Floor Plan

The restaurant’s floor plan provides you with an overview of the full area. It may provide you with a concept about how to get the most out of your area and develop routes for simple mobility of personnel and consumers. Whenever there is potential for development, it’s often possible to reconfigure the situation.

Diners want to have their own space and fewer seats nearby while they eat. At the same time, owners of restaurants like to have a larger number of customers and more places in their dining areas. You may solve that issue by providing various sitting options around the establishment.

Eventually, he thinks, it will be a hub for social interaction. D.C.’s Maydan operator Rose Previte underlined the significance of fostering an enthusiastic and social eating experience in her new restaurant. At the heart of the downstairs dining room is a wood-fire cooking line that serves as the restaurant’s focal point.

What It Means for the Guests: A Guest’s Perspective 

It creates an atmosphere of sophistication and seclusion for those who enter via those doors. They are both curious about what is occurring in the surrounding areas and impatient to be served. 

This not only makes the experience for the guests more enjoyable but also lends an air of sophistication and intrigue to the restaurant.

The customers who have already taken their places in the dining room(s) will appreciate the added discretion afforded by the partition that divides the foyer from the dining room(s).

In spite of the steady stream of people coming and departing the venue, most guests look unaffected. They are not bothered by the rush of cold or hot air entering the building once the exterior doors are opened. They also do not have to deal with the din caused by the people who have been waiting for a place.

Restaurant Floor Plans: The Best Ideas to Begin with!

Make sure your design and layout are in harmony with your idea before making final decisions about your restaurant’s design. A quick-service restaurant focuses on speedy service, whereas a fine-dining restaurant’s goal seems to be a more leisurely eating experience.

It’s important to consider the dining experience from the consumer’s point of view when planning a restaurant layout and design.

We’ll now look at some possible layouts for the most important areas of your diner and discuss how they could affect your overall floor design.

• Layout Idea 1: The Restaurant’s Kitchen Floor Plans

The kitchen plan should offer all the room your restaurant staff needs to continue being active, including during the busy times of the day or night.

It should be pointed out that the floor design shown above allots a specific location and space for each task (cooking, drinking, food preparation, and dishwashing, respectively). 

Your staff will be able to operate more swiftly and effectively during lunchtime and supper rushes since this reduces the likelihood of traffic delays and congestion occurring.

The kitchen layout should include a delivery area located in a distinct area from the food preparation area. Because of this one-of-a-kind function, your team will be able to take inventory, receive supplies, and replenish without interfering with the activities of the chefs and servers.

The staff washroom and dressing room are located in the bottom right corner of this layout for the restaurant, which is another aspect of the layout that merits mention. 

These essential places provide members of the staff with somewhere to go during the break, preventing them from disrupting the clients in the process.

• Layout Idea 2: The Restaurant’s Indoor Dining 

If your dining area takes up 60 percent of your home’s entire square footage, you’re doing it well. To determine how many tables, you’ll have to match your budget, you’ll have to consider the full capacity of your regional building standards.

Consider the movement of customers and servers while planning the dining room arrangement, especially during busy periods. Examine the line of sight from every seat in the home. 

Would customers be required to get up and locate a server? In addition, consider the layout’s ability to handle a big group and its effect on other tables nearby.

If you’re running a fine-dining, full-service, or bistro-style establishment, you’ll want to use this helpful chart to determine how much space you should provide for each diner. Determine what sort of table design and arrangement is most suited for your target customers.

• Layout Idea 3: The Restaurant’s Waiting Area

It is simple to forget about the reception area, even though it is really important, especially during high traffic. 

• Hand sanitizer and masking regulations are two important factors that should be considered (when not at the table).
• QR restaurant tags (so customers can order while they wait).
• Locations to check your coat and sit down.

Customers should be encouraged to take a drink from the bar while they await their table if your establishment is a full-service cafe with a bar. 

Nevertheless, you will also have to examine how to properly spread out the chairs surrounding the pub so that patrons are not crammed next to one another. You can also learn some tips and tricks to choose the furniture for your restaurant before you start the process!

• Layout Idea 4: The Restaurant’s Entrance

The entryway is important since it is visitors’ initial point of contact. The restaurant’s entryway has to draw everyone in, not only those specifically looking for your establishment. As a result, the façade must be genuine and arresting to draw in passersby.

Entrances must convey a feeling of openness, tranquility, and comfort, much like the dining room does. Having a host greet and guide guests to vacant tables is a nice touch.

Your restaurant’s design is determined by the general idea, although customers prefer simple and appealing designs.

Display your menus at the door so that anyone entering your establishment can see what you have to offer. As a result, you’ll get them to remain next to your restaurant for a little longer before they decide to enter. 

• Layout Ideas 5: The Restaurant’s Outdoor Dining 

Throughout COVID, several restaurants added patios or decks where patrons could dine al fresco. When put up appropriately, patios may increase sales by up to 30%.

It is common for COVID-added patios to be the furthest from the kitchen since they were not part of the initial floor layout. Even so, your chairs and tables must be both useful and visually pleasing. Its patio might shape guests’ initial impressions of a restaurant.

A clean passage for employees to and from the restaurant kitchen and terrace, free of tables, would be ideal.

• Layout Idea 6: Don’t Forget the Emergency Exits!

In an emergency, every restaurant’s floor plan should be prepared. Diners are busy places, and customers need to be free to exit swiftly in emergencies. 

Hence why it’s so important for customers to be able to depart their tables and exit the eatery in an orderly manner.

[BONUS SECTION]: Tips for Carving Out a Restaurant Floor Plan

Here are some tips that might help you get started: 

• Accessibility – Don’t limit the number of people who may dine at your establishment; make it open to everyone. By the stairwell, make room for those who need wheelchairs.

• Efficiency is Important – Your serving team needs a clear route from the dining room to the kitchens. Thus effective workflow is essential.

• Examine from the Customer’s POV – Leave a lasting experience for your visitors, but don’t forget about efficiency and cost-cutting simultaneously.

• Make-Long Term Plans – Incorporate short-term and long-term goals while constructing your business. Items you’d like to work with, potential renovations in the works.

• Know About Government Rules –  Be careful to contact the local government for any regulations before producing a restaurant design since you may be required to get a permit and file the plan.

• The 60-40 Rule for Space – Restaurant’s staffing ratios must be 60 percent front-of-house (FOH) and 40 percent back-of-house (BOH).

Make the Best Out of Your Restaurant’s Floor Plan

It’s always a smart option to double-check your flooring policy’s functionality after it’s been designed and installed. Changing things around is always a good idea, especially whenever it comes to seating arrangements. 

To identify the finest floor design for your restaurant, experiment with several layouts and chat to your old-timers regarding what succeeded and what didn’t.