Restaurant Theme Ideas For A Profitable Dining Business

How to create a restaurant theme your customers will LOVE, and they will scream about your business to their friends and family!

There are many factors to take into consideration when planning a restaurant. A major one is a theme or concept, and it can be difficult to choose one which is more apt. To be able to figure this out, you should determine crucial elements such as your audience or target market. Along with that is the price range, and whether you want the ambience to be casual or formal.

Aside from such factors, you also need to mull over if there is a certain brand of food that you would like to build your brand around. There are actually 8 different types of restaurant theme ideas that you can choose from, and they are discussed below. Not that you have to distinctly stick to one concept, but you can get creative and fuse some essential elements together.

Custom Menu Covers

When giving customers their food, restaurant servers can use personalised restaurant menu covers (also check out the best wooden coasters) to extend the life of your menu. This will allow your customers to enjoy their meal without having to hold the pages of the menu while waiting for the server to arrive! Here at World Wide Menus, we aim to provide you with quality products that help you in any way possible. There’s always the engineering menu matrix to think about (make sure to read on menu pricing strategies).

Don't forget your Restaurant Table Numbers & Table Signs to impress every one of your customers (don't forget to check out how to write a restaurant menu)!

Fast Casual Restaurant

This is the most popular trend of the time, and this restaurant theme can be more costly being upscale compared to fast food. What is distinctive about this concept is that it serves food in disposable flatware and dishes. Then again, its food presentation is likewise upscale, including organic ingredients and gourmet-prepared bread. A suitable set-up for a fast-casual resto is an open kitchen wherein customers get to see how their food is prepared. As an example, there is Food Panera which is a well-acknowledged fast-casual setting.

Family Style, or Casual Style Dining

This is how this restaurant concept is called in the United States where entrees are sold at moderate prices. The menu of this type of resto features classic cuisines that are served with signature dips and sauces, together with unique toppings. Several themes may embody the casual style dining set-up, such as Mexican, exemplified by On the Border, barbeque, as that of Long Horns, and Americana, as offered by Ruby Tuesday’s. Food is served on tables in this style of dining, and dishes are non-disposable. The items on its menu are affordable, making this setting low key and friendly to the pocket (make sure to check out the restaurant closing checklist).

Fine Dining Restaurant

This type of restaurant brings to mind a pricey set-up of waiters wearing tuxedos and serving food on tables covered by clean white tablecloths. The finest of food is offered in this restaurant, along with impeccable service and ambiance. Operating this kind of establishment entails that you have more than sufficient resources. Even when owned by the same company or person, each fine dining resto is unique and extraordinary in its own ways.

Bistro or Cafe Restaurant

In a bistro or cafe, waiters don’t serve food on tables, but rather customers go to the counter to make and pay for their orders and serve them by themselves. Traditional offerings from a cafe include pastries, sandwiches, coffee, and espresso. It was in Europe where the concept of cafes has originated, and they are strongly correlated with France. The atmosphere of a cafe, being laid back and intimate, engages many patrons. As a trademark, seats and tables in a cafe are typically set in the outdoors. Meanwhile, bistros are similar to cafes in that the food served is simple and basic and the atmosphere is more casual. But while cafes serve mostly coffee, pastries, and bread, a bistro usually offers complete meals.

Fast Food Chains

When it comes to restaurants, this is the most familiar to the general populace. Way back in the 1950’s fast food chains like Burger King and McDonald’s were extremely popular, and it is from them where other similar restos were spawned, including KFC, In-n-Out Burger, and Taco Bell, among others. What customers find appealing in fast food chains is that their service is fast, convenient and cheap. Since fast food restaurants often come in chains, operating one needs you to buy a franchise. Going by this path is actually more expensive than opening an independent restaurant.

Mobile Food Truck Restaurant

This food trend is becoming more popular nowadays all over the country, and there are plenty of advantages when operating this type of restaurant. Basically, the cost of its upkeep is low, making it an easier business to start. Another perk of it is that it is mobile, enabling you to transfer to locations where there are numerous potential customers. Staffing is likewise minimal. However, you need to exert extra work, management and attention to this kind of business- especially in the first two years.

Buffet- Dining Restaurant

This is one dining concept that has withstood the test of time, having been in existence since the Middle Ages. To this day, plenty of restaurant goers continue to prefer this theme. In a buffet, guests help themselves to choose and get food that has been arranged on a sideboard or table (make sure to check out our restaurant menu boards). A variety of dishes is presented, and customers serve themselves with as much as they can- as long as there are no left-overs. Aside from self-service, catering goes alongside with the buffet dining business. In fact, if you plan to start your own restaurant, serving buffet catering for special occasions can be an effective and profitable marketing or promotional scheme.

Pop-Up Restaurant

This type of restaurant concept is growing in popularity, much like the mobile food truck. It is gaining a huge following in the hospitality industry. Starting way back in 2012, pop-up restaurants have become one of the most prominent trends, according to the surveys conducted by The New Restaurant Associations and What’s Hot. Nevertheless, it is not to say that these kinds of restos are a recent concept. They actually began in the decades of the 1960’s and the 1970’s as supper clubs. You can incorporate varied looks and functionality features in a pop-up concept. Unlikely places can become locations for your pop-up dining business, such as the rooftop of a building, or an olden warehouse. Setting up this type of theme for your restaurant can be alluring, mainly because it doesn’t require a huge investment of your money, or time.

Depending on your budget, preferences, market, menu, and even competition, you can choose the most suitable and profitable concept for your restaurant business from the above list.

See more on our restaurant menu folders.