It’s very important to know and understand the details and realities concerning the “end use” of an Interior environment in the earliest stages of design. Sound “obvious?” (Are you tempted to say, ’Duh? Of course!’) Well, sometimes it’s just not that simple. For instance, there are restaurants and then, there are restaurants. The wrong type in the wrong market can be a financial disaster.
Everything from the working budgeting parameters to the physical location, to the degree of competition in the relevant marketplace should influence the considerations and decisions in designing or remodeling the Interior of an “eating place.”
You are poised and excited about opening a newly designed restaurant. The community hears the rumors, is hungry for details and — make no mistake — has definite opinions about what kind of food service they believe the community needs.
One subject your professional Interior design team will want to address at length with you, the client, is: the local market. What types of food service exist and are healthily operating in the black? Is there a preponderance of great spots to “grab a bite,” but little or no choice for more formal “dining out?”
Maybe you have the intention to cover both bases. Sometimes that’s possible, but, as mentioned above, it depends (crucially) on the overall circumstances. Nothing is more unfortunate than either one more of what is already dense, or a high profile dining destination in a market that just cannot support it.
While knowing the importance of actual, true end-use applies to almost any venue, I am highlighting restaurants because that venue is at unusually higher risk if the market study is inaccurate. What community does not have consumers who long for what is missing. When you don’t have what you want locally, it’s the same old story: Get it out of town. So, off to “somewhere else” go the tax dollars, the satisfaction of local consumers and even the community’s perception as a destination.
When a prospective restaurant client approaches a professional Interior design team with their “vision” for their dining establishment, the very first consideration has to be the feasibility of their vision in the exact market they are considering. What kind of an eating establishment is lacking and desired in the community under consideration?
Market research is actually unbelievably simple — especially in smaller, growing communities. The community associations and organizations are a good place to start. City Planning departments and Chambers of Commerce ordinarily have their fingers on the pulse of their business community — they probably know the complaints, preferences, desired venues and the missing pieces of the community’s enterprise inventory.
Your Interior design team wants to design your venture to the appropriate marketplace outreach. Yes. The interior environment that a hungry public encounters when they enter your eating-place needs to match your outreach message as well as the kind of appetite they bring through your door.
Getting it right couldn’t be more important. We have all encountered failures in motion. When it all seems to be going wrong, the first thing to slip is adequate service; next comes menu selection compromises, closely followed by limited hours. Then, often, negative attitudes are directed at a consuming public that just couldn’t support the client’s personal choice — a choice that just didn’t fit the community’s needs.
Discuss your ideas with your professional Interior design team so that, together, you can get it right.
Robert Boccabella, B.F.A. is principal and founder of Business Design Services and a certified interior designer (CID) in private practice for over 30 years. Boccabella provides Designing to Fit the Vision© in collaboration with writingservice@earthlink.net. To contact him call 707-263-7073; email him at rb@BusinessDesignServices.com or visit www.BusinessDesignServices.com or on Face Book at Business Design Services.
