Designing a Successful Restaurant Environment

By Amelia Levin, Sr. Associate Editor -- Foodservice Equipment & Supplies, 4/24/2008 2:20:00 PM

Why do so many restaurants fail? That is the million-dollar question in the foodservice industry, isn’t it? One study published in 2005 by the “Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly” journal showed that 26 percent of restaurants opening across the country fail within the first year, followed by about 45 percent after two years and a whopping 60 percent after three years. Other studies, though they’ve been contradicted, have concluded that up to 90 percent of restaurants in certain areas throughout the country have failed in one year.

Although the actual number and statistics of restaurant closings vary widely, the overwhelming majority shows that opening a restaurant is a risky endeavor indeed. So, what does it take to succeed?

Great Service
Consultant Richard Stolarczyk, vice president of Robert Pacifico Associates Inc., who has been opening restaurants for decades, lists three traits that, based on his experience, he sees as the most important, if not the only important traits restaurants need to have in order to succeed: great service, great food and a great atmosphere. Period. 

“One would think just having great food would be enough,” Stolarczyk says. But in his opinion, good service is the most important trait a restaurant must have. “There’s a reason the word ‘service’ exists in ‘foodservice,’” Stolarczyk says. 

A good operator, he says, thinks about establishing great hospitality as soon as guests walk in the front door, and that begins at the host desk. “You can only make a good impression once,” Stolarczyk says. “The last thing you want is a staff member having attitude, either at the host desk or if a server brings plates over and drops them on the table, or argues with the guest.”

This might seem obvious to most in the foodservice industry, but all too often, true hospitality, which Stolarczyk describes as “treating each customer as if they’re the most important person in the whole restaurant,” doesn’t always happen. The restaurants that truly succeed, in his opinion, are those with great managers and leaders who create a culture of genuine care and concern for the customer at all levels of the operation. 

Great Food
Again, this sounds obvious, but you wouldn’t want to serve Mexican food in an Italian-style restaurant would you? Believe it or not, many restaurants make this mistake of not pairing their menu with the look and feel of the restaurant, Stolarczyk says, though perhaps not to the extent of this particular example. 

One of the reasons for this mishap, generally, is not doing one’s homework. “Operators really need to pay attention to details and know their concepts to the core,” Stolarczyk says. This means an operator needs to fully understand the particular market being served. “If it’s a neighborhood restaurant, the operator needs to cater to the neighborhood,” Stolarczyk says. “If it’s a blue collar crowd, then perhaps you serve comfort food, and create an atmosphere that’s more simple, and family-friendly, not gaudy. The objective is to be thinking about who your diners are.”

Aside from a thought-out menu, consistency remains the key to creating great food and a regular clientele base, Stolarczyk says. Chains tend to have an advantage in this regard because of the strict processing and standards they maintain. But this doesn’t mean independents can’t achieve consistency; there’s just more work along the way. This is especially the case, Stolarczyk says, when restaurants seek to buy local products, which taste great, but can taste different from delivery to delivery.

Another concern when it comes to restaurant menus is the tendency for many restaurants, especially those with successful, creative chefs, to overextend their menus. “Some of the mistakes I see at the back of the house are operators who overextend their menus and don’t have the right equipment or enough equipment to produce the food they want to serve,” Stolarczyk says. “The customers wind up waiting a long time for their food because you can only put so many pots on the range.” 

This, naturally, is where MAS consultants come in to help restaurants and foodservice operators balance their menus with the volume they serve, and work with design consultants to meet their needs.

Great Atmosphere
Of course, on its own a well-designed back of the house is not enough to create the ideal hospitable environment. It takes the proper marriage of an efficient back of the house and an appealing front of the house to create an atmosphere that resonates with diners. “They want a sense of welcome and comfort, for both the eyes and the ears,” says Warren Ashworth, a renowned, New York City-based architect. “They’re looking for a place to come back to. There’s an element of people out there looking just for novelty, and those are not a restaurateur’s repeat customers. You need to bring them back, and also the space should be new and fresh in some way.”

In a sense, Ashworth says creating a desirable front of the house is similar to what goes on in the back of the house. “I feel that designing a great restaurant is like good cooking,” he says. “There’s nothing new in the world of ingredients, but what’s different is the way a chef puts it all together. The world of design is exactly like that. There are a few design elements available in the palette; however by putting them together in new ways, you get a new and fresh interpretation.”  

One of Ashworth’s more notable projects was the Landmark restaurant and bar in Chicago, which won a 2004 Landmark Preservation Award. The challenge with this project was to make a historical vast space that measures 11,400-square-feet and with high, gothic-like ceilings feel warm and inviting instead of cold to customers entering the front door. Landmark has three bars, four dining areas, a catwalk lounge, a private dining room, and a VIP room, all under one roof, yet it all has proven to work together seamlessly.

To create that welcoming feel despite the brevity of the open front room, Ashworth created a bright blue arch at the entryway. “An arch has always said, ‘welcome’ throughout the history of architecture,” he says. “And blue is classically used under archways, particularly in Mediterranean regions.”

To “shrink down” the ceilings in the front room, Ashworth designed a catwalk with seating that directs guests’ eyes upward as they walk in the door. Along the sides of the front room, leather booths lead up to the main bar along the rear left side, which features seating for roughly 30 people, mirroring along the back wall and a wooden bar.

“Wood, either painted or not, is always the key to creating a comfortable atmosphere,” Ashworth says. “I can’t do restaurants that are all steel and glass or plastic.” 

The bar was also designed to resemble one Ashworth saw in a picture of Radio City Music Hall. The picture, in essence, formed the basis for the concept behind Landmark, which he hoped would evoke the feeling of “being in a very classy nightclub/supper club from the ‘40s and ‘50s where there was always floor entertainment and elegantly dressed people walking around all the time.”

Upstairs, the “blue room” features a smaller bar surrounded by several booths, just off the open kitchen line. “It’s unusual to see blue inside a restaurant and we really wanted to show that a blue room could be incredibly comfortable and inviting.” Paintings on the walls, overstuff leather fabric, and smaller space help create that calming mood. 

In the private dining room downstairs and at the back of the restaurant, Ashworth created a Moroccan theme with tons of plush, soft fabrics, pillows and vibrant colors to again create a sense of comfort but also liveliness and excitement. 

But beyond the use of fabric, colors and structure, the key to great atmosphere, Ashworth says, is the lighting. “Good lighting is really at the top of the list of great design elements,” he says. “I often tell clients that they can take a space, paint it black, but put in excellent lighting and be ready to open the restaurant. Lighting is the absolute first and foremost thing you need to make the space feel warm and welcoming. There are a million ways to do it, but it’s critical.”

Many equipment and supply chain professionals view the back of the house as the most important part of a foodservice operation. On the other hand, a number of interior designers, architects and hospitality folks place emphasis mainly on the front room. But theoretically, great food ultimately tastes terrible with bad service. And well-executed, great-tasting food and top-of-the-line service will do nothing to excite diners if the atmosphere is uncomfortable, unwelcoming and uninspiring. What Stolarczyk and Ashworth have said, and have demonstrated through their all-encompassing work, is that the key to a restaurant’s success lies only and truly in the marrying of both foodservice worlds. 

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