Restaurant Decor: 10 Ideas to Decorate Your Dining Space

Menu aside, a restaurant's decorations are one of the most effective ways of attracting customers, and ultimately gaining traction and success in the hospitality industry. While your famed dishes will be part of your venue's drawcard, the look and feel will ultimately play the biggest role in your customers' overall experience.  

Organic marketing on social media platforms, like Instagram, is becoming a key priority for restaurants in the industry today, and can be achieved by having a well-decorated, “Instagrammable” restaurant. 

With the objective to get customers to take out their phones, and snap photos of the fit out or food to share on social media, you need to be providing the perfect setting. Unique features within your restaurant will help you achieve this.  

Let’s go over some different restaurant decoration ideas that you can put into practice in your venue. 

1. Typography 

Typography in your venue can be a great way to express your style.  Think big bold graphics, diagrams, marquee letters or even charts that are fun or even informative to line your restaurant walls.  

The biggest trend with typography in venues is old school neon signs. You can get these custom-made in a range of colours with quotes or phrases that reflect your restaurant's vibe.  

2. Wall art or Murals 

A trendy and cool way to showcase a local artist's talent is to hire them to paint an entire wall in your venue.  The wall art will define your restaurant style and become a memorable feature of your venue.  Your customers won’t be able to resist taking a photo in front of this Instagram worthy piece of art, helping you achieve that organic marketing. 

If space is limited, you could opt to have a mural done on the outside of your building. Not only will this draw attention from foot traffic and anyone driving by, but it will also define your restaurant’s style before guests even enter.  

3. Add greenery 

Plants are a huge trend at the moment, so by incorporating them into your venue is a must.  The benefits of adding plants to your restaurant is two fold: not only do they add to the beautiful and relaxing atmosphere, but they also help to purify the air.  

There are many easy-to-grow plants that are perfect for restaurant spaces such as devil’s ivy, snake plants, ferns and many potted palms. And there is always the potential to hire them from a dedicated plant supplier so you don’t have to worry about upkeep.  

If you are not a green thumb, you can always opt for a faux alternative. While not as visually appealing as the real thing, having a faux greenery like a green wall can create an amazing photo backdrop for guests as they enter that is easy to look after.  

4. Embrace your kitchens features 

Another unique way to add decor to your restaurant is to open up the space and make some kitchen elements part of the decorations. This is especially beneficial if your venue has a unique cooking focal point, like a real wood-burning pizza oven.  

While this isn’t the case for every restaurant, you could also consider ideas like a glass window into the prep area of your kitchen so diners can watch as their food is prepared. If you have an extensive drinks list, another idea is to incorporate an exposed wine cellar that showcases your diverse range, or a whiskey wall that displays the many styles you offer.  

5. Have a theme

When executed correctly, a restaurant that has a theme can be a huge success, but there is a fine line between the theme being impactful or over-the-top. Look for a theme that isn’t too trendy so it won’t date rapidly, and instead choose something that can be easily incorporated in a modern way.  

Additionally, make sure your theme makes sense to the audience and the type of food you plan on serving. You don’t want to decorate your venue like a 70’s diner where customers would expect burgers and milkshakes and serve only curry-type dishes.  

6. Fit to your location

Location and restaurant-style will often help decide the decor itself. If you plan on opening a waterside seafood restaurant, then classically it will call for a bright space decorated with whites and blues, light timbers and the potential for some nautical decor. However, if you plan on opening a wine bar off a busy city street then you will decorate in an entirely different way.  

The best approach is to take a step back and think about what your customer will be expecting when they step foot in your establishment. 

7. Choose the correct lighting 

Lighting in your venue is one of the biggest factors impacting ambiance and atmosphere. If you want to create an intimate experience for your customers, then bright fluorescent lighting won’t cut it. Think about your environment and choose the type of lighting based on that. 

The next thing to consider when it comes to lighting is energy efficiency, safety and whether the lighting is enough for customers to get good snapshots of the food for organic marketing purposes.  

8. Consider sound management 

There’s nothing worse than dining at a stunning restaurant, but not being able to hear your partner talking over the general room noise. Absorbing sound can sometimes be overlooked when decorating a restaurant space. If your venue has a lot of hard surfaces tiled or concrete floors with brick walls, then the sound can definitely be an issue since these surfaces will allow it to bounce around the room. 

Choosing soft seating options and decor like cushions, curtains, wall canvases and rugs can all help to absorb noise levels. Investing in professional acoustic ceiling panels are also a beneficial investment that won’t impact on style too much.  

9. Hide the Point of Sale 

Point of sale systems aren’t always the most visually appealing objects in your restaurant, so keeping them hidden can create a sleeker-looking countertop. Consider mounting the cash drawer on the underside of your countertop and have holes so cables can be run through benchtops in a tidy way. 

Epos Now offers sleek POS hardware that can help minimise the bulky look of a traditional system. Alternatively, our cloud-based POS software can run on iOS and Android, so you could even opt for a tablet-style POS system. 

10. Don’t forget functionality

While functionality is a far less fun part of designing a restaurant it can have a huge impact on your bottom line. Take time when planning out the layout of your venue to create the most functional layout possible. You don’t want your guests to feel crowded by table placement and cramped in small spaces. 

Consider hiring a professional designer to help with this so you can maximise on functionality and not lose any of the design elements.  

Restaurant decoration ideas like these can have a big impact on both the appeal and success of your restaurant business.  

Learn more about streamlining your hospitality workflow with a restaurant POS.

Epos Now can help your business by:

• Integrating with over 100+ business tools to facilitate better marketing, improved customer loyalty, and simplify accounting
• Accept a range of credit, debit, gift cards, and contactless payments 
• Allow you to manage your store from anywhere with 24/7 cloud access

Speak to an experienced Epos Now consultant to learn more about the system today!