When guests choose to dine at a restaurant, it’s not just the food. It’s the entire dining experience. The allure of the setting, the ease of mobility inside the venue, the attentive hosts, and, of course, the delicious food. It’s a blend of benefits that come together with a carefully designed restaurant floor plan and dine-in experience.
In other words, if you offer great food and attentive staff but zero place to move or unattractive seating, you’re missing parts of the equation for restaurant success.
Restaurant floor planning is a careful process in the design of every venue.
Read on to discover the essential considerations for your venue’s floor plan and how using restaurant floor plan management helps you.
What is restaurant floor planning software?
Careful creation and design of a restaurant floor plan is essential to the success of a venue. F&B concepts use restaurant floor planning software to ensure a smooth experience for guests and staff alike.
You can get floor planning software through architects and F&B consulting firms, or as part of your restaurant’s reservation system.
Floor planning systems are often referred to as restaurant table management systems because they include features related to merging tables.
Often, the floor planning editor or system allows hosts to drag-and-drop tables and seats to see how they look and affect the floor plan.
In addition, floor plan management systems help restaurant staff block tables for certain events or groups, or during certain times of the day. Other popular features include merging or combining tables, usually to seat large groups.
Considerations for your restaurant’s floor plan
When you think about your venue’s floor plan, these are the top elements to consider.
Available space and sections: This includes whether the venue is located on a single floor or if it’s a two-story venue. Similarly, if the venue comprises indoor, outdoor, and/or roof seating.
Restaurant flow: This includes the kitchen, areas for restrooms, and their proximity to seating areas, along with the venue’s entrance and other doors.
Accessibility: This is an important feature in many dining concepts, especially those located outside malls. Is there valet parking? Is the venue accessible to guests who use wheelchairs? Is there an elevator for elderly guests?
Adherence to building codes: For F&B venues, building codes and regulations are mandatory laws that determine the standard for various systems. Building codes ensure the safety of guests and staff and cover everything from air conditioning and heating to electricity and ventilation.
Natural light: The availability of natural light in a venue can affect where guests like to sit during the day and how a venue arranges its lighting fixtures. Natural light creates a more inviting and energetic atmosphere. Venues should complement their natural light with evening lighting to create an inviting atmosphere that enhances aesthetic appeal.
Guests and staff: A good restaurant floor plan entices guests to keep coming back and helps staff improve table turnover rates. For example, if your venue houses a bar area, this area should be separate from the dining area. Your floor plan needs to account for space for staff to move from the kitchen to the dining area to the entrance and back.
How it works: Restaurant floor management
As mentioned a restaurant floor plan management system acts as a table management system or restaurant seating software.
In other words, it helps you
Manage seating for large groups
These are among the most challenging situations for a dining concept, especially for small venues.
A restaurant table management system shows you which tables are occupied, who is closing their check, and which seats are available.
When attempting to seat large groups, hosts often struggle. Where can they seat this group of 8 or 10 people without negatively affecting flow in the restaurant?
A floor plan within your table management system allows hosts to make these decisions faster and more efficiently, ensuring guests don’t wait for too long.
Seat walk-ins faster
By reviewing your venue’s floor plan, including available tables and upcoming restaurant bookings, you can seat walk-in guests faster.
This helps you improve guest experiences, boost satisfaction, and increase your restaurant’s sales.
Manage table arrangements to suit special events
Whether you have a special event like an engagement party, or regular dining and music events, or something else, you can use your table management system to arrange your
Manage table-tops for special days
One of the most popular events in the F&B industry are Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.
Often a restaurant will get online reservations from special Valentine’s Day promotions they’re running.
For a successful seasonal event, restaurants need to prepare for Valentine’s Day.
Usually this involves preparing two-table-top seating arrangements for couples dining out, which changes the venue’s layout significantly.
Using the restaurant’s floor management software, restaurant managers can create a cozy atmosphere, while ensuring couples’ privacy as well.
On the other hand, preparing your venue for Mother’s Day, means bigger seating arrangements for families or groups of 3 or 4.
How Servme’s restaurant floor planning software helps you
In addition to the above, using Servme’s restaurant floor management and table management system provides you with more benefits.
Availability across all devices
One of the top reasons restaurants continue to use Servme is its availability and accessibility across all devices. Servme is available via the web app, along with iOS and Android phones and tablets.
Multiple floor plan views for efficient management
F&B venues, using Servme, get 3 different views of the floor plan, ensuring quick seating, faster table turnover, and efficient organization throughout the day.
Hosts can see the restaurant’s floor plan via grid view, list view, and floor plan view. You can also see which tables are occupied and which aren’t in real-time, allowing you to make decisions faster.
Automated table combinations
Known as smart recommendations, automated table combinations is a super easy-to-use feature that will help you seat guests in seconds.
For reservations or walk-in guests, simply add the number of guests you want to seat and Servme will recommend the best tables to combine.
You can also try this out ahead of busy times or peak seasons to learn more about the best table combinations in your venue.
In the image below, you can see Servme’s 'Recommended pairings' (combinations) of tables 2-3, 4-5, 13-14, and 19-20 for a party of 5.
This means you don’t have to worry about hurting your restaurant flow or squeezing guests together. Automated table combinations ensure efficient use of your floor plan and available space.
Reservation management features
As a restaurant reservation management system, Servme helps restaurants streamline online and phone bookings, manage floor plans, waitlists, and more.
You can use Servme to collect online bookings from multiple sources, and view those sources in your dashboard.
For example, Servme integrates with platforms like Zomato, Tripadvisor, Reserve with Google (depending on location), and others. You can also get direct reservations from Facebook and Instagram.
Restaurant CRM
Servme offers F&B concepts, including restaurants, wineries, poolside concepts, and entertainment options, a robust restaurant CRM.
Combined with a table and floor plan management, restaurant managers and marketers can
Manage seating based on guest preferences (based on information entered during previous visits or the reservation widget)
Tailor SMS marketing and WhatsApp marketing messages for guests
Use the guest notes feature to improve guest satisfaction, retention, and future personalization
Guest notes
This Servme feature allows guests to enter notes such as preferences, dietary requests, allergies, and other needs in your reservation widget.
All this information is logged on to their unique guest profile in your CRM, so you can see what guests prefer and tailor their experience accordingly.
Manager Notes
A favorite feature among hotel F&B concepts is Servme’s Manager’s Notes feature. This helps restaurant managers create notes for staff relating to the flow of the day, special events, VIP guests, or notes regarding seating arrangements.
For example, a restaurant manager can remind staff to maintain the two-table-top settings when clearing tables because it’s Valentine’s Day.
Guest surveys
As an F&B concept, your guests’ satisfaction is paramount to them becoming repeat and loyal guests. Use automated guest surveys in your restaurant to ensure everything is top-notch.
You can automate sending guest surveys after closing guests’ checks. You can also decide how to send the survey, by email, SMS, or WhatsApp messaging, and the questions you want to include.
Automated seating via booking widgets
When your guests make a reservation via a booking widget, they are automatically allocated seats on your restaurant floor planning system.
You can enable this from your Servme dashboard.
Nada Sobhi
Table Management
