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PHILADELPHIA,
PA -- In the wake of America’s restaurant boom, Susan Davidson
and David Schultz, principals of DAs Architects Inc., one of the
country’s leading specialists in restaurant design, announce
the ten biggest design mistakes made in the hospitality industry
today.
Davidson and Schultz, who are husband
and wife, architect and interior designer, have worked in the industry
for over twenty years each, with all types of clients, form trendy
urban coffee houses to upscale suburban fine dining establishments,
from banquet halls to full-scale hotel meeting facilities.
By providing a list of weak points
that they have documented and been called upon to correct over the
years, they hope to “give hospitality industry professionals
a kind of checklist for self-evaluation and improvement. Successful
design is not an immutable destination, but rather a continuous
process of fine-tuning and adjustments, even in the best of spaces.
Price points, image and clientele may be different, but design problems
are overwhelmingly similar. To err is human; restaurants and designers
are no exception. People forget that the first step in correcting
a mistake is identifying it correctly.” To aid in identifying
the problems and expedite their solution, Davidson and Schultz offer
these observations of the most common restaurant design mistakes:
(1) Inconsistent ambience.
Most customers decide if they like a restaurant before they have
even had a chance to sample the food. That “je ne c’est
quoi” of ambience is created by myriad physical design elements
that impact the senses. When one or more of these elements is out
of sync with the rest, this results in discord, confusion and an
unexplainable uneasiness in the space.
All of the elements of restaurant
design that need to harmoniously complement each other include:
theme, uniforms, linens, tabletop design, china, lighting, graphics,
signage, menu, artwork, space flow, facade, landscape, napkins,
and even matchboxes.
A marvelously integrated image is
Manhattan’s Balthazar brasserie. Although every detail is totally
fabricated and clearly in and of America, the look and feel transports
every guest to France. Rainforest is another great example of total
design integration. Larger chains and restaurant groups generally
have been quicker to realize the importance of design continuity;
smaller start-up operations, scraping to cut costs, often treat
visual elements as unnecessary extras or luxuries, and do themselves
and their customers a disservice in the process.
(2) Too many people involved in
design decision-making. Everyone knows the adage, “too
many cooks spoil the broth.” The same applies to restaurant
design. While it it valuable to have input from staff and investors,
one key individual needs to take the lead and forge a single collective
vision. Only one person can and should be the final decision-maker;
otherwise, and unfortunately we’ve seen it happen, the mishmosh
of ideas makes design costs skyrocket and creates a space that is
“ungepotz,” neither here nor there.
(3) The target market is forgotten,
or never clearly identified. As the ultimate service business,
restaurants must address the needs and tastes of their key customers.
In today’s age of increasing market segmentation, the old saying
“please all and you please none” takes on new meaning.
The best restaurants aren’t afraid to appeal to clearly identified
target markets: Hard Rock Cafe to tourists, Le Cirque to thrill-seekers,
Chuckie Cheese to children and families.
Ground Round, by contrast, seems to
struggle between its happy hour bar business look and its children’s
family style image. East Side Mario’s, is somewhat disorienting
for some of its casual adult client, with its overstimulating, almost
Chuckie Cheese-like atmosphere. A typical mistake of incorrectly
identifying market needs is often made in suburban areas where there
may be a clientele who could afford a more upscale restaurant, but
has no interest in frequenting one -- their choice to live in the
suburbs reflects a conscious anti-urban, anti-upscale, anti-formal
lifestyle. The market in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for example, could
have easily supported the small, formal French “Windows”
restaurant in terms of per capita income levels, but the interest
simply wasn’t there. Those who could afford excellence in dining
would sooner make a weekend of it and travel to New York, Philadelphia
or Washington, and go to a more famous establishment.
(4) The space between tables is
off. The luxury of space is tantamount to sophistication and
elegance. Even in Europe, where studies have shown that personal
space, ie., the distance people need between each other to feel
comfortable, is much less than in America, more formal restaurants
still follow this rule. Could anyone imagine the tables at Taillevant
to be as close to each other as they are at Carnegie Deli? Part
of the fun of sitting at an Italian sidewalk cafe is eavesdropping
on your neighbor’s conversation, and joining in if you choose;
part of the pleasure of sitting at Le Cirque is knowing that you
don’t have to talk to anyone you don’t want to.
The distance between tables at a casual
restaurant In America 24-36 inches, while a fine dining experience
calls for at least 42 inches between tables. People sense when the
space between tables isn’t right; no yardstick is needed. Part
of the problem is that when there isn’t enough space, waiters
have a difficult time moving through the dining room and properly
servicing the tables. That is one of the reasons why banquettes
and booths are difficult very formal service; waiters simply can’t
serve from the left, and clear from the right as royal etiquette
requires.
(5) Traffic patterns are overlooked.
The movement of people -- front of the house, back of the house,
and guests -- is quintessential to every successful dining experience,
whether at a casual or formal restaurant. Far too often, the design
focus is only on the fixed, immovable elements, to the detriment
of the restaurant working properly.
(6) Budgets are unrealistic.
Budgets define reality; disregarded, they destroy the most brilliant
ideas. The difficult aspect is correctly matching concept to hard
dollars, because the range is so wide.
For a casual, informal cafe, you may have to pan for only $50 a
square foot for construction, whereas a formal, elegant room easily
might call for up to $400 a square foot.
On top of the construction costs,
you need to add anywhere from 7 percent to 25 percent for design
fees. Know that designers bill various ways: Some ask for a flat
fee, others an hourly rate, other establish their fees as a percentage
of total cost and yet others make their money through markup on
finishings you buy. All are considered accepted practices by the
industry.
As in any business, method and amount
of payment are somewhat negotiable. And, or course, there is always
a wild card – when working on a renovation of an older historic
building, design and construction costs can increase dramatically
because no one ever can know what will be entailed until they open
up the walls.
(7) Cutbacks are made on non-revenue-producing
space. Every business tries to increase its revenue-producing
assets, and in the restaurant business, they are seen simply as
seats. Logically, it would seem that the more seats, the greater
the income. The real secret to success is in balancing direct revenue
producing space – all the things that support seating, from
kitchen, storage, management, coat check and water lines to service
stations and data lines for computer systems.
Anyone who has worked in the industry has seen the deleterious effects
of cutbacks for the sake of the seating god. Chefs have to spend
extra time every day to run for staples and supplies that can’t
be stored. Customers are disgruntled because they have to wait so
long for the coat check to run to the hinterland office to get their
coats. The bookkeeper shares a desk with the chef and the manager;
records are a mess, and relationships are strained. None of it has
to be this way.
(8) Lighting is poor. Neon in
windows creates a glare. Lighting at eye level – 42 inches
seated or 64 inches standing – is akin to looking at a pair
of incoming headlights. Wall scones without diffusing lenses are
visual hot spots, disconcerting to the eye. Direct downlighting
casts unattractive shadows on the customers unfortunate enough to
sit under them.
The best lighting, by contrast, doesn’t call attention to itself.
Your eye is drawn to the object being, rather than to the light
source. Nobu, in New York, is an excellent example of the magic
of great lighting – uplights from below accent trees, recessed
cove lighting adds soft candle power, light washes a decorative
stone wall, drawing attention to the rich texture.
The worst lighting starts from a negative, overly simplistic, purely
functional premise – not to have darkness. The result is obtrusive
at best, offensive at worst. The best lighting starts from a positive,
more complex premise – to be an integral part of the whole
design, showcasing the best features of the restaurant. It’s
not a question of not having darkness, but rather of creating beauty.
(9) Colors are offensive. People
look good and feel good in warm colors – red, brown, cream,
amber, rose, pink, salmon, peach. Countless studies have shown the
calming effect of yellows, the appetite-enhancing effect of oranges
and the stimulating effects of reds. The bolder and brighter the
hue, the more invigorating it is; the paler the hue, the more relaxing.
Cold-color families – blues and greens – are good for
theatrics, dramatic effects – to create a jazz club feeling,
a smoky lounge or a moonlit midnight effect. In warm climates they
may be used as psychological conveyors of coolness, but even in
the tropics, azures and verdants are best used as accents only.
Heavy-handedness too easily casts an unflattering pallor over customers.
David Rockwell’s Yellow Giraffe
could be cold and stark in its simplicity, but because of the use
of natural materials, the space is warm and inviting. Patria in
Manhattan uses warm golds, spicing the space with bright accents.
Temple Bar & Grille is very much an interior space, a room defined
by and enveloped in rich burgundy drapery. It is at once dark and
mysterious and inviting and social. Jekyll & Hyde may be the
only successful restaurant in history to be painted in gray and
black, but it is a house-of-terror spoof on a night-club.
Generally, more elegant restaurants
use fewer colors, creating richness through varying textures and
subtle patterns. Causal, more informal restaurants tend to use more
colors and brighter hues. Good taste is the secret ingredient that
determines the right mix and the perfect balance.
(10) The future is forgotten.
Successful businesses are by nature dynamic entities. While you
can’t anticipate every market change, you still can plan for
growth. The most common restaurant changes are private dining rooms,
banquet rooms and room expansions. Original designs that consider
those possibilities can save major downtime and dollars for construction.
It is always important to dream into the future and hold your vision.
If you start to build it, the customers will come. If you design
it well, they will come in droves.
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