How to Add Character and Style to Your Restaurant Design

Getting your restaurant's aesthetic right is crucial to its success: the perfect design can create the all-important favorable first impression that a customer has of your establishment, as well as boosting the overall theme, ethos, or ambiance that you want for your eatery. Design plays an integral role in effective branding too. Follow these tips to achieve your goal of making dining at your restaurant a memorable experience.

Fabulous Furnishings

When choosing restaurant chairs and tables, think carefully about the image you want to promote and the best way to achieve it. You may wish to use bench seating if this plays into the character of your eatery, or you could opt for minimalist style metal chairs (with padded seats) if this would better suit the vibe you’re trying to create. Leather chairs may be a perfect option for a high-end restaurant, whereas booth seating often looks excellent in cozy, relaxed venues. Practical considerations will also come into play, such as selecting items that can be easily cleaned, comfortable, and durable.

Consider working with local craftspeople to create bespoke furnishings or focal points, if your budget can stretch to this, or employ a skilled person to breathe new life into old chairs and tables. This could work incredibly well if your restaurant is visible in its endorsement of sustainable practices. 

If your restaurant has a bar, give some thought to whether you want bar seats lined up in front of it - again, this will depend on the mood and style you want to promote. If you do opt for bar seats, be sure to tie these into your overall aesthetic by matching their color and design to the rest of your furnishings - and don’t forget to measure them before purchasing to check that the height is suitable.

Don’t forget details like doors and window sills: keep these clean, free of stains, and freshly painted in shades that match your color scheme. 

Think About Your Restaurant’s Personality

The personality of your restaurant’s menu and vibe should be reflected in its design. For example, if your idea is to create a cozy boutique for couples and small parties, this should be emphasized in its styling; for instance, think heavy drapes in rich fabrics, candles, and chic semi-distressed wooden chairs.

If your menu is vegan and you want to underline your eco credentials, consider using reclaimed, artisan-crafted rustic restaurant tables and chairs made with recycled components.

This concept extends to staff uniforms, too. If you’re aiming for high-end cuisine, this should be reflected in what your team wears.

The Importance of Tableware

Extending your theme or overarching design to your tableware is a great way to add flair to your restaurant’s overall aesthetic. If your establishment is offering laid-back, gastro-pub fare, then you might want to think about serving food (where practical) in baskets, sharing platters, or even on wooden serving boards. On the other hand, if your restaurant is of the fine-dining variety, then silverware and cutlery of unmistakable high quality will serve you well in terms of how they affect customer expectation and perception before they have even taken a bite of food.

Don’t Forget the Bathrooms.

As a side note, it can be tempting to think of design, in terms of your restaurant’s bathrooms, to be gotten around to once the main dining space has been perfected. It would be wise, however, not to underestimate the importance of the humble restroom. Most of your customers will be visiting it, and getting the design wrong here could be catastrophic, no matter how fabulous your food is.

Think carefully about how you can reflect your brand image in this room. Use your restaurant’s color scheme or logo, and consider incorporating some little touches to tie the bathroom to your overall picture further; for example, if you have lots of pot plants throughout your dining area, add a few well-chosen plants to the restroom, too.

Keeping this area clean and well-stocked is vital, and a staff member should be checking the bathrooms every half an hour.

Menu Design

A great menu needs a fantastic design; this will tempt your guests to try a range of dishes and be keen to come back to sample more! Again, think about running your brand’s color scheme and general aesthetic through your menus, too. Use shaded borders or areas on the pages to both highlight specific items and as an opportunity to incorporate your restaurant’s colors.

The style of the wording is important. The kind of language that might be just right for a relaxed beachfront eatery may not complement a menu detailing delicate cuisine dishes. Think about your audience, always, and what would best reflect your brand. 

Build on your eatery’s unique character by choosing font styles and sizes that enhance it. Best graphics that further strengthen your brand (and remember that these are great ways to promote items effectively), and experiment with layout and ordering. 

Shine a Light 

Getting the lighting right is one of the most important things you can do to add style to your eatery’s design and reflect its unique character. But before you make any decisions, first of all, assess the natural lighting coming into your space. Note how it changes through the day and whether any spots never receive any natural light at all.

Next, think about what type of ambient lighting you want for your restaurant. This can be used to enhance your overall theme: for example, pendant lighting could be utilized to create a warm, intimate atmosphere, while contemporary chandeliers could be incorporated to significant effect if your theme is minimalistic chic.

Accent lighting is great to spotlight particular features or points of focal interest. You could use this, perhaps, to highlight vital decorative elements or artwork on the walls. Task lighting is essential, too: this is the sort of lighting used to enable diners to read your menu comfortably, and LEDs are helpful for this. Place these carefully, though, as LED lighting can cause color distortion, so it may affect how food appears on the plate in terms of tone and contrast.

Make use of dimmer switches to enable you to shift the ambiance of your eatery at different times of day, and consider using LED candles once night falls if this suits your vibe. LED fairy string lights can be incorporated to remarkable effect, both indoors and outdoors - again, if this ties in with the character of your space.

Bringing it All Together

The most important thing when it comes to your restaurant design is careful planning. Assess your space carefully to consider how your planned theme or style can work most effectively. When choosing furniture, tableware, and decoration, keep at the forefront of your mind the extent to which these choices will support the character that you wish your eatery to have. Bring this unique style to your menus and your lighting - not forgetting the bathrooms, too - so that your diners will enjoy a seamless and stylish experience that matches the quality of the food.