We all love to eat at restaurants that evoke a pleasant ambience. When we are happy, our appetites are naturally better. And ambience can play a big part in filling our stomach, leaving us wonderfully satiated. If you are in the food and beverage business or any other retail business for that matter, you’d put more attention to developing an ambience that your customers would like to spend time in. Ambience refers to the atmosphere and mood in a space setting; for an F&B outlet, it tells your customers more about the brand: its personality for example. Ambience contributes to the overall sensory experience one encounters in a restaurant, bar or retail space. What then can impact the ambience of a space?
Where’s the spotlight on?
The play of lighting can affect the mood of a place, evoking a casual vibe that likens to a fast food diner or an expensive mood redolent of fine-dining establishments. When you want to celebrate your wedding anniversary for example, you’d prefer a cosy and romantic ambience, likely to be characterised by soft, dim lights rather than full-blast fluorescent spotlighting your table and all over the restaurant. Having said that, though softer lighting works better for more intimate dining and for spurring cosier moods, it cannot be too dim to warrant a walk to the restroom impossible or to be too straining for you to make out the items on the food menu.
In addition, other than your main lighting source, what are some alternative light sources? Secondary lighting like hanging light bulbs or vintage chandelier displays can light up the focal areas of the restaurant or café interestingly. Position lights on the ground to lit up the floor path to the bar counter or install wire bulbs to lend a visual perspective to your exposed ceiling as interesting lighting mediums.
Colour me beautiful
Colours communicate moods and these can be used to define the atmosphere of a place succinctly. Strong colours like red stimulate and draw attention; red is also found to stimulate appetites. Whereas colours such as blue are known to create a tranquil effect; in restaurants, they are perhaps best to be used carefully for foods served on blue plates may not be that appetising. Colours can thus be used to dress up moods accordingly.
Layout special
Table layout in a restaurant also contributes to the patronage of the place. Some restaurants place tables too close to each other for the diners to be at ease; this already sets the tone for the place. Diners would rather eat and go then linger and enjoy the ambience and the privacy they have for the evening. Though turning the tables around is an important business aspect of the restaurant, keeping the diners happy by giving them the deserved privacy is also important to ensuring repeated patronage. To plan for an effective table design, sit at the table in a restaurant and determine if the table is too exposed or too close to the next table for comfort. One way to ameliorate this condition would be to place other decorative elements around it, such as a pot of plant or sculpture as interesting space dividers for example.
Other elements like music and other decorative displays such as art and paintings can all add to the atmosphere of a place. To successfully establish the appropriate ambience, perhaps one of the initial things to do is to establish the tone and manner of the space and then deciding what supporting elements are there to cohesively support the intended ambience.
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