The main focus of of any restaurant should always be food and service, but to differentiate your restaurant from the competition you need great design. There are countless elements to design, but a good place to focus on is the entrance. The entrance is unavoidable for all customers so it is important that this aspect of your design be given a high level of attention. Below is my check list for the basics of a great entrance. Follow these as the start point the basics and then let your creativity add the identity you are trying to create.

1.Have a clearly defined entrance. The front door, the place where you expect people to come in and out should be clear. Many times restaurants that take space in strip malls will have 2 or more doors, because the building shell was not designed with a specific tenant in mind, remove these unused door. If a door is required as an exit remove the exterior handles and any other clue to potential patrons that this is an entrance. The entrance should be more than just a door in a wall an Architectural feature should act as a designation of entrance. This could be many different things, the door could be inset or pushed out, a canopy over the door could be added e or a wing wall could flank the sides of the door. You are only limited by your imagination.

2.Provide shelter at the entrance. The weather is not always good and the well designed entrance will start to give shelter to patrons before entering the restaurant. This has several practical impacts. People will not be rushing through the doors when it is raining, they will be able to approach the entrance get out of the rain and stop to shake off before using the doors, minimizing accidents. It also provides a place for people to stand outside while waiting for a friend to pick them up.

3.Have doors that are easy to open and easy to get through. Most restaurants have double doors at the entrance and many times only one door is unlocked, people approach one of the doors grab the handle and pull only to find the door immovable. This totally defeats the purpose of having a double door, unlock both doors or have only one wide door. Most restaurant doors will have automatic door closing devices know as closers. Keep these adjusted to the minimal allowable pull force force, 8.5 pounds of force in the US.

Again this is a utilitarian list, cover these 3 items and the add on your branding and image, integrate the appearance into the rest of the elevation, make it your own. Not covering the above will undo all your other efforts on designing a great entrance to your restaurant.