Whether your restaurant is new on the scene or it’s a regular hangout in the neighborhood, learning to balance seating can be a chore.
When you first open a restaurant, you might want to save a few dollars by not overfilling the restaurant with furniture. But some diners might view the lack of furniture and assume that means lack of customers; you could also run into a different problem and find that during busy times you don’t have enough seating.
So how can you create the right amount of seating?
Think of it this way: The more the better.
In general, when people go out to eat, they like to be around other people. Don’t assume that tables need to be far apart or that there needs to be only few of them. While you don’t want people squeezing through the restaurant and feeling annoyed that it’s just too full, the reality is that the more full the restaurant (of people and furniture) the more people will assume it’s a popular place to be.
Now, once you fill a restaurant with furniture, it’s important that the furniture itself be balanced. Don’t place all the furniture on one side of the restaurant in order to create a walking path; by contrast, don’t just place furniture sloppily throughout the restaurant. It’s important that there is a defined system of furniture placement.
Once you know that you need to add furniture and you are faced with balancing that furniture, consider these tips:
- Create clear walkways, but don’t assume they have to be straight paths through the restaurant
- Depending on the type of restaurant, consider creating groupings of tables and chairs, leaving other areas a bit more open
- If space is truly at a premium, and it works with your restaurant genre, consider family-style seating where guests mix and mingle with others at tables that are grouped together.
Once you have considered your needs and the various options available, visit Tablebases.com for a wide array of tabletops, table bases and chairs that can suit your needs.
