How to make a concept to refurbish your restaurant?

If you are planning to use the Covid induced down time to plan your restaurant refurbishment, then this article if for you.

In this article we will discuss how to make a concept to refurbish your restaurant that can help you with the changes you desire to make with your restaurant space.

Before you begin there are 3 phases that you need to consider

How is the restaurant doing now ?

This is a very important question to ask. If your restaurant was doing well and the slow down is only temporary due to the pandemic, evaluate if the market has changed for you to take action.

However if the restaurant was not making money or was on a slow spiral, it may be time to revive it with a refurbishment.

Ok so now that you have decided that the refurbishment is important, we need to consider how to go about making the change.

Market survey

As with any plan you need to do a complete market survey to find out the demand for your concept. This need not be a full fledged feasibility at this time, but just a high level scan of your neighborhood.

Some points to consider may be

• Has the demographics in your neighborhood changed.
• Has the requirement and expectation changed
• Is there any competition for the concept you were thinking of
• If there is no competition, why not. Is your concept not popular?

Once you have a basic idea on this, you can then proceed with making the concept document.

Making the concept document

A concept document is the the basic document that you will use to put your ideas in your head to a document that you can refine and share with your other stake holders.

You can use this document to get approval for your project, or give it to the architect and interior designer to design the space or other vendors to explain your concept.

So it is a detailed document that you can make that can serve many purpose.

Start with the Overview

You can use any word editor on your computer and start with creating the sections:

The sections you include must have

• Overview
• Design Inspiration
• Menu Inspiration
• Some specialty dishes in mind

Once you have nailed these segments down, you can also go a little deeper and explain the other parts of your restaurant

• Service style – Will it be a silver service, formal, casual or buffet restaurant
• Signature features – Live counters, Gueridon trolley, Barbeque pit etc
• Table and Chair set up – How many table of 2, 4 etc is being planned
• Floor and wall finish – Is there any special feature being planned for the floors and walls.

This sets up the tone for the restaurant and gives the designers something to work with.

Menu Design

Any restaurant concept begins and ends with food.

So it is important that you spend more time on this segment of your overview.

You will need to define the menu principle and how it will translate into actual service. By putting your mind to it now, you can make any changes that you may need in the design segment you planned earlier.

For example, if you are planning a barbeque restaurant, you will need to incorporate efficient exhaust systems etc.

If your menu is Mexican, your decor may need to match that food.

That is the reason, you will need to spend time in this section. Also defining this helps you to identify specialty chefs or equipment you may need in future and budget accordingly.

Needless to say, in this stage you will even need to plan the beverage menu for the same reasons.

Interior

Service Standards

In this section, plan for the service standards, style, uniform details, entertainment that you will have in your restaurant, etc.

Planning for all this is equally important to ensure that all the elements fit together.

This should match the concept to refurbish your restaurant or else your guest satisfaction will not be on par with what you envisioned.

Putting it all together

Now that you have the story, but if you know anything about an animation movie, they prepare a story board about every step of the movie.

Similarly you should prepare a moodboard that captures all the elements you described in the document.

The mood board will help you understand if all the things you described goes well together or something is a mis match to your concept.

This can help you to go back to your drawing board and revisit elements that may not work together.

Take Feedback

Once you have made the 2 document, it is time to show your plan to the various stakeholders.

Take their inputs and make sure you revise any changes that are proposed.

And once you revise your documents a few time, you can then be confident that you have a good working concept to refurbish your restaurant and you can be assured of success.