The most overlooked aspect when laying out restaurant tables or designing a food service dining area ... Acoustics (related article on restaurant acoustics coming this month).

One of the easiest and cheapest ways to change the ambiance of your restaurant or bar ... Mirrors (related article on restaurant acoustics coming next month).

You get one (or at least relatively few) chances at restaurant design and layout, but poor restaurant table layout costs you every day. A less than optimal restaurant floor plan can cost real $$$!

The table layout aspect of restaurant design is critical ... look at he publicized criteria for both AAA and Mobil travel guides and you'll see that they both use the clearance and related ambiance as major components of their scores,

What configuration will work best for my bistro?
How far apart should my restaurant tables be?
Round restaurant tables or square in my cafe?

When designing and laying out a restaurant, bar or other food-service space, these are among the most important questions faced -even the experienced restaurateur may be without definite answers.

For the designer or office manager laying out a break room, these questions can be even more mystifying.

The answer selected can (literally) make or break operational success. Night after night, having on two top restaurant tables available with parties of six or eight waiting OR having your banquets that seat six regularly filled with lone couples enjoying romantic dinners can drive you broke!

There is no panacea for all of these issues - We do not have a single magic formula (or even a magic eight ball) to answer the questions, but we have gathered some useful information and research results to assist you in working out the best answer for YOU.

The Frequently Asked Questions below may answer some questions about the mix and spacing of restaurant tables but may actually raise more questions - if so, it has accomplishes its purpose as it can lead to the optimal restaurant table mix, table spacing. restaurnt design and best layout for YOU.

Diner, server and busser traffic patterns should be considered when designing restaurant table layout. That number of passes (volume), speed of travel (rate), distance traveled to and around restaurant tables, and direction of flow should be mapped and considered in restaurant design.

If fast service is more critical to your restaurant success, pay attention to distance from the back to the front of the restarant dining room layout and vice versa. Quick service restaurant and cafeteria design should have at least a partial focus on access and speed of accessibility. These fast-paced operations should have clear paths for travel with optimal economy and as little crossing as possible. Don't become frustrated or upset, just consider this in your restaurant floor plan layout.

In slower paced environments, hostess stations should be close enough to the front door so that they are easily visible and obvious but not so close as to cause congestion at ingress and egress points of the restaurant. If large parties are promoted and desired, the size of and flow through the restaurant waiting area can become crucial. If people waiting are steered towards the bar by design, remember that the noise level, congestion and sometimes smoke level will be higher here and in the areas of your restaurant floor plan surrounding the bar. an in the general dining area.

The waiting area should be comfortable but not too much so as you don't typically want people to sink in as resist or resent being seated at their restaurant tables.

For a cafe, the top considerations are different - you don't want people too comfortable or private as you want them to move on after a meal. A floorplan with a cafe table layout creating slight crowding might be the winner.

In design of a restaurant waiting area or a cafe floor plan (cafe design), you want your busboys to be able to get in and out, quickly clearing and cleaning for new patrons.

Resources

Articles you can find on the internet concerning restaurant layout.

Useful Books on bar & restaurant layout/design.

Frequently asked questions

How many people does a X by Y (size) table seat?

What mix of table sizes should I use?

Dedicated or combinable tables?

Do I want square or round tables?

What size bases work with what size tables?

Should I have booths or freestanding tables?

How much space do my servers & patrons need between tables?

How many people does a X x Y table seat?
A general guideline, suggested by the AIA, in 300 square inches per person for comfortable dining. While helpful as a "rule of thumb", it is important to realize that the requirements vary widely depending on the decor, menu & style of service.(To feed four diners a family style Italian meal takes much more table area than to serve baskets of chicken wings to the same four (hopefully in a different restaurant!).

Considerations when adjusting the suggested area per diner in your restaurant:

Menu

Seating Style (oversized? castered?)

ambiance

What mix of restaurant table sizes should I use?
The optimal mix of restaurant table sizes,

Is my restaurant layout optimal with dedicated large tables or smaller tables can be combined?
When first begining a restaurant design, It may seem that all two-top cafe tables that can be arranged side by side to accommodate larger parties is the most flexible solution and, technically, it may be, , but ...

Will customers (diners) be best accommodated by square or round tables?
Will diners and patrons in my resbe beasttaura

Should I dedicate the space to booths or stick with traditional restaurant tables and chairs?
In some European cities

How much aisle do I need to leave between tables? Chairs? The wall?
Restaurant design for cafe, bistro and brasserie tables demand a minimal spacing while traditional american dining requires greater clearance. If your waitstaff is serving family style from huge tray, its a whole different ballgame. Lightly used (for seating only) aisles between restaurant tables should be at least 24". Conventional aisle width or spacing between your restaurant or cafe tables is 36 - 42" - some say there can never be to much clearance between restarrant tables but I disagree. The best restaurant ambiance in Atlanta is found in a brasserie with VERY rant tables b little space between tables - it is the close quarters that makes the space work!

Generally (there is no such thing in restaurant interior design), 22" between restaurant chair backs that can be moved (albeit at some inconvenience) and 36" between 'hard' constraints will work but a few inches more can make a huge difference. Remember, light chairs are relatively easy to move.

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FGH International has a reprint of an informative article on their website - Restaurant Layout is of the Essence from Canadian Hotel & Restaurant Magazine (January 1992). While not in depth, the article covers air circulation, customer service, service access, front doors, lighting servers' stations and atmosphere.

In addition they have an excellent synopsis of the ADA requirements for public areas.

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  Notes on restaurant layout specific to ADA requirements
http://www.restaurant.org/legal/law_ada.cfm#accessibility

The ADA legislation does effect how to layout restaurant and impact you! Visit the U.S. Department of Justice's ADA site.

Books

Bar and Restaurant Interior Structures
Lorraine Farrelly (208 pages, hardcover,64.40)

The Food Service Professionals Guide to Restaurant Design
Sharron Fullen (144 pages, paperback, 13.97)

Restaurants That Work
Martin Dorf (223 pages, hardcover, 37.40)

Bars Pubs Cafes : Hot Designs for Cool spaces
Juliet Taylor (192 pages, paperback, 23.80)

Hospitality and Restaurant Design No. 3
Roger Yee (320 pages, hardcover, 41.96)

Restaurants Clubs and Bars
Fred Lawson (338 pages, paperback, 68.95)

Design and Layout of Food Service Facilities
John C. Birchfield, Raymond T. Sparrowe (336 pages, hardcover, 72.45)
There is a paperback workbook companion to this volume that is GREAT! It's out of print but try and find it on Amazon.

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An interesting report ...

The Impact of Restaurant Table Characteristics on Meal Duration and Spending

found at: http://industries.bnet.com/whitepaper.aspx?docid=122461&promo=100200 Format: PDF Size: 301KB

Their overview: "Restaurateurs seeking to maximize revenues should look carefully at how long their tables are occupied and at how much the average diner spends. This study examines two aspects of the restaurant environment table type and table location to determine whether the placement or configuration of a dining table (in particular, whether it has an architectural anchor) has measurable effects on duration and average check, which were combined to show average spending per minute (SPM). The findings suggest that restaurant designers reexamine the use of banquettes and not be overly concerned about 'bad' tables

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High quality aluminum frame furniture at discount prices.

Restaurants in Anaheim, CA
Menus from your favorite Anaheim restaurant or find a new favorite restaurant.

Designs and Layouts - THE resource for Designs And Layouts!

www.cafe-tables.com

Restaurant Table Bases
www.tablebases.com

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