What is it that we look for when we go out to find a place to eat? In many cases, we would be searching for something that will give us a filling meal that will keep us nourished for as long as possible. Others would want to strive to eat in restaurants that can be seen as status symbols in and of themselves. There are also many that would crave ethnic diversity in their cuisine.
However, if there is one common denominator that binds all of these goals together, it is the desire to get to a restaurant that provides the requisite amount of cosiness. It stands to reason that you, as a restaurant owner, should do everything within your power to provide this cosy dining experience that unites customers from a wide range of backgrounds, whose needs can be rather disparate other than this uniting factor.
That said, you might be wondering how you can bring this cosy feel to your own eatery. Should you optimise your lighting? Group your tables closer together? Perhaps you should consider using natural lighting or ventilation systems in order to impart a more organic vibe to your business? Click here to find out.
All of those ideas are well and good, but we have something that can go several steps beyond this. We are talking about restaurant booths, and you would be amazed at just how much of a difference they can make in terms of the level of cosiness that your customers would perceive once they step in through your door.
Restaurant booths might seem like an old fashioned concept, but they have a certain timeless appeal that you need to factor into the equation. For starters, these booths can harken back to a bygone era, one where people did more than just spend the lion’s share of their daily hours trying to earn a living.
A truly undeniable benefit of these booths is that they can cluster your customers far closer together. This would allow them to take part in conversations, which in many ways are core components of the perfected dining experience. Most would agree that this is the primary benefit that restaurant booths can send in your general direction, but at the same time, it is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
In order to better understand the full length and breadth of the advantages of decking your restaurant out with booths, we need to first and foremost look into their history. Before tables and chairs became commonplace in these types of establishments, booths were considered the global standard. Throughout much of the 20th century, tables and chairs were far from the platonic ideal when it came to dining experiences.
The fact that booths have been used for so long can provide nostalgic value all on its own. People love to enter a restaurant and get the feeling that they have somehow magically travelled back in time. For those that were alive in the halcyon days when restaurants only used booths will find the memories of that era revived in all of their splendour.
That’s not to say that members of the younger generations won’t stand to gain anything from being seated at booths of various shapes and sizes, though. Individuals that were born or raised after the golden age of booths in restaurants passed them by and often look at relics of the past in idealised ways.
As a result, they would feel a sense of nostalgia as well. This nostalgia would not come from the freshening up of memories associated with real life experiences, but rather they would provide younger people a glimpse of what things were like in the good old days.
Now, this might give you the impression that nostalgia is the only major benefit that you can receive from restaurant booths, but there is a lot more left to explore. Apart from representing the idyllic past that so many of us want to return to, restaurant booths also provide a fair bit of comfort.
A plush chair and a well organised table can do the trick in a pinch, but they are better suited to efficiency of service. They will obviously provide an appreciable level of comfort as well, yet the fact remains, restaurant booths tend to up the ante in that particular regard.
The comfort levels that you can offer up to customers with booths is simply incomparable. Practically the entire construction of the booth will be soft to the touch, and you can take this to a whole other level by using the right kind of upholstery as well.
The more comfortable your seating arrangement is, the more secure your patrons and diners would end up feeling. It is essential to recognize that booths of this variety provide an inordinate quantity of staying power. What this basically means is that once your customer settles into the booths, they might be tempted to stay a while even after their meal has been finished.
They won’t be wasting this extra time either. Instead, they would almost certainly want to order some drinks or perhaps a dessert course so that they can properly enjoy the booths to the fullest possible extent.
As you can clearly see, the possibilities are endless once you start thinking outside of the box. We have only listed a few of the plus points associated with restaurant booths, and they can already describe the reasons behind this trend coming to the fore yet again after so many years. Whether you are opening a fast food joint or an establishment that gives customers access to the finer things in life, booths will always come out on top.