Layout and Your Bottom Line

Several elements contribute to the success of every food service operation, but one of the most important is the basic physical layout of the business itself. Properly designed and constructed, your restaurant’s layout gives you a decided advantage from the day you open your doors. Poorly conceived layouts can create the opposite result – an insurmountable hurdle that impacts your customers, your staff and your business itself.

When designing your layout – or considering a renovation to help improve it – remember that you want your customers to spend the bulk of their time in the part of your business that generates the greatest revenues. That might be the bar in a nightclub or the table area of a restaurant.

Your layout can also impact your staff’s ability to serve guests satisfactorily. Your staff needs ample space to serve meals and drinks, clear the table with minimum intrusion and in general avoid any disturbance to the flow of business.

In short, your goal is to move your clientele through your restaurant’s space without creating bottlenecks. To do so, you must analyze your available square footage against anticipated customer capacity before making adjustments to your layout.

SRI addresses this subject with a proven technique involving “bubble” or adjacency plans that help determine the location of key elements and then analyzing customer activities to determine if the relationship is appropriate. Contact us to learn how this technique can be applied to your business and help increase customer service, productivity and profitability.