While hiring the right restaurant contractors can probably take fifty percent of the burden off your shoulders, as a hands-on business owner, there are some things you must still consider yourself when designing the floor plan of a restaurant.

Waiting Area

The waiting area and the frontage of your restaurant could be overlooked especially if you are working with a relatively small space and not much room to work with. However, floor space and a comfortable waiting area speak thousands about a restaurant and its caliber. If you want your restaurant to make a great impression, pay careful attention to your waiting area. Does it have enough floor space? Are the elements appropriate for your image or are they way too outdated? Are they making your restaurant look cheap or posh? Accessible or aloof?

Dining area

How your dining area is planned is one of the first things you must talk about with restaurant contractors in London. You would want to pick a contractor who can balance aesthetics with function. How much profit per square meter are you expecting? Ideally, any restaurant should have at least 18 inches between occupied seats for the comfort of their diners as well as the more efficient and safer flow of traffic within the restaurant during its busiest hours.

Kitchen area

You must also not overlook the structure and layout of your kitchen area. For this, you will need to talk to your chief chef and your trusted kitchen staff members. Sit down with them. Is there enough room for them to safely move during peak hours? Are the locations of the dishwashing area and the cooking areas optimal? Is there a need to update the kitchen appliances? While aesthetically, the kitchen is not really seen by the customers, how the kitchen looks can affect the performance of your kitchen staff so you might want to invest some money into improvement here as well.

Bathroom

The bathroom, if you are trying to save money, should be close to the kitchen to save on plumbing lines. However, the bathroom and the kitchen should not look like they are too close together. You might get called out for hygienic reasons by the health inspector if it is. Talk to your restaurant contractors about their proposed layouts and see how they can balance cost-effectiveness with functionality. The bathrooms should also be separate enough from the dining area but not too far away that your customers feel they are not accessible enough.

Service Area

Your service people should also be allowed a space where they can efficiently manage the floor. They should have an apt service station for them to take care of the accounting/bills as well as manage the flow of customers going in and out of the restaurant.

Outdoor area

Your outdoor area can be an extension of your indoor dining area. However, more than that, the elements here should attract more customers to try your food. A cluttered or crowded outdoor area will not welcome more customers to dine in. On the other hand, an outdoor area that is too bare is a waste of space and opportunity. Those who like dining outdoors might also get turned off and look for other restaurants to try.