Mistakes to Avoid When Buying Restaurant Furniture

Furniture can affect a lot about how one perceives a restaurant, whether it be the comfort that customers feel when dining, the elegance of the aesthetic, or even the specific colours that are used!

Don’t Be Unprepared with Your Aesthetic

When deciding on your restaurants furniture it’s important to consider the aesthetic you’re going for. If you’re a restaurant that is serving seafood, for instance, perhaps it could be a nice touch to theme your restaurant to sailing and the open sea, you might want to find an aesthetic that fits this theme, whether it’s finding wooden chairs or recycled ship timber furniture.

Aesthetic isn’t necessarily the same thing as having a theme, if your restaurant isn’t themed to a specific type of food or is something that isn’t as evocative of a specific setting (i.e. burgers), you can still focus on other aspects that link your aesthetic together. If you don’t have a particular aesthetic in mind for your restaurant, it’s important to start thinking of options. This doesn’t mean that you have to commit to a specific type of mood for your establishment, but it helps a lot to have some type of continuity in your setting. This is because the public often has an idea of what professionalism looks like, typically involving unified colours and pieces of furniture from similar styles or time periods. Being conscious of these distinctions of unity can help you tighten up the overall presentation of your restaurant through aesthetic unity.

Even if you’re somebody who already has a restaurant and doesn’t know which aesthetic you should be searching for, it’s all about finding unifying threads throughout the different pieces you already have, whether that be related to make, tradition, colour or more abstract forms of design.

Don’t Forget About Comfort

If you find bistro chairs that look wonderful, but feel awful to sit in, then the chairs aren’t very good chairs after all. Restaurants are centred around eating and if your customers aren’t able to sit in a comfortable, it affects the overall experience and makes it less accessible to many people.

This doesn’t mean you have to throw out the chairs or give up on using them in the first place. Depending on the context, it’s very easy to put cushions on any given chairs or use other types of fabric to them to make them more comfortable for guests. This also gives you an opportunity to unify the furniture through a singular aesthetic like in the last tip, allowing you to get two birds with one stone!

Another important factor to consider when thinking about comfort is whether or not the furniture you’re buying is truly accessible for people living with disabilities. Sitting in certain chairs can be difficult for those with limited motion and tables that don’t have enough legroom can be inhibiting for those who deal with types of chronic pain such as arthritis. On top of this, you should make sure that any tables you use have ample room for wheelchairs in the event that a guest isn’t able to use a chair in the first place.

Making your restaurant accessible can also mean picking out furniture for that specific purpose such as ramps for wheelchairs and other amenities that can be brought out when necessary, so be sure to keep track of that as well.

Be Sure of Your Measurements

First and foremost you need to make sure the furniture you’re purchasing will fit into the physical space you have for your restaurant. Customers should still have space to move around even with the furniture in the room, so having furniture that just barely fit into the room itself likely won’t cut it.

Sure, it might seem difficult to plan something so nuanced in advance, but there are things you can do before you even think of the furniture you need. Making a floor plan adjusted for proper scale can be a great way to test out the ideas you have in your head to ensure that they’ll actually fit within your desired space.

Measurements are also important to keep in mind when pairing furniture as well. If you purchase chairs that have seats too high for the table (or a table that is too low for the chairs), you run the risk of not giving customers enough leg room when trying to sit down! This can be incredibly cumbersome for people above certain heights, weights and also people with certain disabilities. By making sure your measurements are correct, you can ensure that none of your customers are inconvenienced by the furniture!

Don’t Always Go for Cheap Prices

Finding a good price doesn’t mean that you’re getting a good deal. Furniture specifically manufactured for commercial use will also be more durable, allowing it to be use for longer and not have to buy as much in the future.

Finding furniture that is truly worth your money will forever be a balance of mixing and matching based on price points and reviews. If you are somebody who likes to shop online, familiarising yourself with review sections and other websites that give input on furniture quality can be a great way to make sure that what you’re buying is truly worth the price tag. If you’re somebody who prefers to go to places in person to find furniture, taking the time to thoroughly inspect the furniture you’re purchasing can be an invaluable skill, teaching you to quickly analyse what will work effectively and what won’t.

Take Colour into Consideration

Colour essential for any sort of thematic or aesthetic unison, but it can also have effects on the way people eat food and influence the way you perceive food. This is why trends such as purple ketchup and other types of seemingly unnatural food dye products didn’t stand the test of time.

There is also a distinct correlation between colours and eating habits, with many people feeling more hungry when they’re surrounded by certain types of colours (i.e. red stimulates one’s appetite and blue is a appetite suppressant).

Is there a way you can optimise your colour choices to drive business further? Perhaps there’s a way you can do a complete overhaul? Or even re-contextualise some colours to give the entire restaurant a completely different effect? The possibilities are endless!

In Conclusion

Making sure that the furniture in your restaurant is high-quality can often be the first step to having a convincing and successful restaurant experience. This is because the furniture can not only help contextualise the entire experience, but provide comfort and reassurance throughout for your patrons. If you’re going to scrutinise one part of the restaurant building process aside from the actual food itself, it should be furniture.

At the end of the day, having a restaurant is not only a chance for you to connect with others, but also express yourself and sharing your passion for food with customers.