Restaurant seating strategy: how to optimise your restaurant seating layout

A well-thought-out restaurant seating plan will:  

• Help you fill your space effectively  
• Support your front-of-house staff to perform to the best of their abilities  
• Improve the customer experience   

As sector specialists in hospitality-focused software and using our experience in helping businesses streamline and manage operations to boost sales using software, Access Hospitality explore all the things you need to know to create a restaurant seating strategy that’s right for you and your business and how it can help you seat more tables, serve more customers and increase guest satisfaction.

What is a restaurant seating strategy?

A restaurant seating strategy helps you to maximise the use of the physical space within your restaurant by serving the optimum number of guests, making it as profitable as possible. It also forms an essential part of operational planning, helping with kitchen management and staff scheduling.   

But what should you consider before you can plan a successful seating strategy? There’s a lot to think about, but when you get it right, you can generate higher turnover and boost profits.

In fast casual restaurants with high footfall, an effective restaurant seating strategy will allow more customers to be seated with a greater turnover of tables at every service. For high-end restaurants offering tasting menus, or just one sitting per table, per service, an appropriate restaurant layout can add to the overall guest experience. This would then lead to higher spend and an increased chance they’ll return.   

How to calculate restaurant seating capacity?

In most restaurants, 60% of the building space is reserved for the dining area with the remaining 40% hosting the kitchen, storage and preparation areas.   

 When it comes to designing restaurant floor space, hospitality interior designers generally recommend an allowance of 12-15 square feet per person. However, in a fine-dining restaurant, where there needs to be a sense of luxury (and this includes space) they recommend giving each person 18-20 square feet.   

 You will also need to factor space in your floor plan between occupied chairs (around 18 inches) so diners can move chairs in and out of the table with ease and space. This will be determined by the style of your restaurant, but most customers won’t be keen to rub shoulders with strangers when they eat, so leave a gap of at least 4ft to give each party some privacy and allow space for staff to serve them comfortably.   

While there are recommendations for space between tables and chairs, the seating capacity will be determined by a whole host of other factors – from the location of the kitchen and how waiting staff access it to the style and size of furniture you choose.   

4 things to consider when making your restaurant floor plan

1. Flow   

Before you squeeze tables into every available space using the formula above, think carefully about the practicalities and how operations will flow during service. If you are providing table service, waiting staff will require space to take orders, deliver them and clear away. Staff will also need to be able to easily reach the kitchen to collect food and serve it, so keep space for a service corridor to every table. Don’t forget to provide a waiting area for customers in your floor plan before they are seated and a clear route to the restrooms.  

2. Comfort vs profit  

 Before you choose seating for your restaurant, consider how it will impact the customer experience and how it will support the desired ambience you want for your venue. Squeezing lots of tables in and supplying hard seats might stop diners lingering so you can turn tables quicker during every service, but they may have stayed for dessert and coffee if those seats had been more comfortable. Strike the right balance between comfort and profit to create the perfect customer experience.   

3. Accessibility  

Under the Equality Act 2010, restaurants must accommodate people with disabilities and ensure their business is accessible to all. When designing your restaurant’s floor plan, ensure part of it is accessible to wheelchair users, including disabled toilet access. 

4. Zoning   

Will your restaurant be catering to different customer demographics during one service? For example, will you be welcoming families alongside customers attending a business lunch? If so, consider creating seating zones to keep customers with differing priorities separate. Give families the bigger tables at the back where there’s space for prams and highchairs and away from the booths at the front where a business lunch can be conducted in a private and quiet environment.   

How to optimise your restaurant seating layout

Once you’ve determined the important considerations, you will be in a better position to optimise the space you have. To do this:   

• Maximise your seating capacity – Research the different types of furniture available to see how it can best work within the space you have. Banquette seating along one wall is a great space-saver. Booths can accommodate more people in a narrow section and provide more intimacy (for the aforementioned business meetings). If you have a bar area, add stools in one section to host solo diners or couples looking for a quick snack.     

• Consider table size – Choose tables that can flexibly accommodate different sized bookings according to seasonal demand. Being able to separate tables into more twos for Valentine’s Day or join them all together for larger groups during the festive season will be invaluable.      

• Design a restaurant floor plan – If you’re struggling to see how the space will work, sketch it out, either with pen and paper or by using table management software to get a better idea of flow and how easily it will be to turn tables.    

• Ask your guests – When your customers book, check the purpose of their visit and ask them if they have a seating preference. Do they want a booth, a window seat, or prefer to sit at the bar? By considering their needs, you’ll guarantee guest satisfaction as soon as they arrive.   

How can technology support optimising restaurant seating?

So, your restaurant layout ideas have become a reality and you feel confident in the physical aspect of your restaurant seating strategy. For well-established restaurant operations that are routinely finding that managing space is an issue implementing software to manage the situation is a solid investment.   

At Access, we help our customers implement Access Collins which includes table management functionality that handles everything digitally and intuitively maximises space, saving you time and energy while providing a clear picture for all staff for every service and booking. This kind of software usually features drag and drop functionality which makes it easy to lay out your venue for service and see which tables will be used and when. There’s no need to spend hours creating a manual floor plan for each service, which we all know can be thrown into disarray with one cancellation.     

Other features often included in table management and booking software which support a restaurant manager include:   

•  Digital view of table plan, giving complete visibility  
•  The ability to align table management to support operations (You can plan ahead for busy events and festive seasons to maximise space)   
•  Pre-visit information collected at booking including pre-orders or allergen notices 

Ready to take the next step towards optimising your venue layout? 

Creating a restaurant seating strategy doesn’t have to be complicated – in fact as a feature of our restaurant booking and reservation software you can manage all your table management processes in one digital space.    

In this article, we’ve explored the benefits of table management strategy and all the things you need to think about to get started. And we’ve looked at how you can do it. We recommend that our table management tool is most useful for well-established venues that have a steady influx of customers regularly and are looking to optimise their venue space. For newer restaurants that are building their customer base, we recommend starting with restaurant marketing. 

Find out more about Access Collins’ table management tool and how it can help support your restaurant seating strategy.

 

You might also be interested in:

• Should you implement a restaurant deposit policy?
• How to increase revenue in your restaurant
• How to manage your restaurant wait list
• How to manage restaurant reservations
• How does an online restaurant booking system work?
• Access Collins brochure