What are your favourite things about eating out? Sure there is the aspect of someone else cooking and serving you, but what about the space? What do you like best about how cafes and restaurants look and work? Would you like to capture some of that feel for your kitchen and dining area? Why not! Bring the restaurant appeal and experience home for your kitchen!
From easy to clean quartz and forgiving floors, to the ability to transform from intimate settings to group gatherings, take a lesson from professionals with inspiration from restaurant appeal.
Restaurant Appeal
Restaurants have a lot of appeal for a lot of different reasons. For some the draw is the intimate space just for two for date nights. For others, they love being able to have a group of their favourite people gathered together in one space where stories and laughter can be shared around the table. Yet others appreciate how quick and easy it is to keep the space clean and organized. Guess what. You can have all that at home too!
Intimate Appeal
Are you looking to create a date night vibe at home? After spending much of the last year and a half there, we appreciate it, but might crave a change in scenery every once in a while. How do you do that at home? Think about how you can create an intimate nook in your dining room. Would a table that expands or contracts depending upon the number of people present change the vibe of your room? Maybe dinner at the island just for two? Or what about a separate dining room altogether, so you don’t have to look at the mess in the kitchen at all? Open concept kitchens are great, but not if you want to escape the mess for a romantic interlude with your partner.
There are other ways to add an intimate appeal just for two. Think about adding dimmable lighting, candles to the table, or breaking out a tablecloth and cloth linens to lend a celebratory feel to your date. If you want to linger over dinner a little longer, without worrying about washing up just yet, perhaps a side table is just the thing to move your dinner dishes out from under your elbows, without interrupting the flow of your evening.
Group Gatherings
Okay, you have spent an awful lot of time with your family as of late. We get it. While you might love them, sometimes adding a few more people into the mix makes everything new again. But that doesn’t mean you have to worry about how many people can be seated at a table, whether you can get reservations, or who else might be in the vicinity. Keep your gatherings safe by hosting a few of your favourite people at home instead by creating space for everyone in your kitchen design.
So how do restaurants make space for larger groups? Sometimes they push tables together and add a few chairs. Other times, they feature round tables to allow everyone in the group to make eye contact around the circle. Bench seating lets people get cozy too. If you have the space, why not incorporate some of these ideas into your home. Built-in benches are a great answer to this, as are tables that expand to make room for more. If you need more space on the table for dishes, consider table service for your meal or have guests serve themselves off a sideboard or from the kitchen island.
Swift Cleaning and Turnover Capability
Restaurant owners go beyond just the layout of the space when designing a dining room though. Ultimately, it is all about how to keep the space clean and turn over patrons as quickly as possible. That means thinking about what kinds of surfaces you have in the space. From tables and floors that are easy to clean, to surfaces that might hide dirt a little better than others, sometimes it is all about the design. They can’t mop the floor between every diner, but a surface that hides dirt in dim lighting might get you through until the end of service. Think wood or neutral coloured tiles or laminate.
Same thing with tables. A fresh tablecloth is perfect for accidental spills, but hard surfaces that are easy to clean reduce your workload and the energy spent trying to eradicate slops from your dining surface. If you have children, you know how important that is. Porous surfaces can be unforgiving when it comes to food and drinks that stain on contact, like red wine or spaghetti sauce. Quartz is great for that.
At the end of it all, there is still those dishes to worry about too. After the group is gone, you still have to wash pots, pans, and plates. Restaurants know that big sinks make cleanup a breeze. They are perfect for all those larger items and you can get one in your kitchen too.
Not everyone can afford or wants to eat out all the time, but you can bring the experience home by incorporating design elements into your kitchen design. Want the appeal of a restaurant? Start thinking about what you like best in your favourite restaurants and break down how they attain that. Then contact us about how we can bring restaurant appeal into your new kitchen.