496 Interior Design Copyright Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc. to remain competitive. The design concept must be very strong and refl ect the food served. For example, a newer restaurant trend is a menu touting organically grown food that is harvested, prepped, and cooked on-site. The dining facility should refl ect the essence of this trendy farm-to- table menu. It may include a healthy indoor/outdoor interior concept that would appeal to this diner profi le. While the design concept should not mimic the food served, it must be easily identifi able and fi t the location. Perhaps the most common ambience mistake in a restau- rant is poor acoustics. Conversations drowned out by loud noise can ruin even the most handsomely appointed restaurant. For example, a recent study in New York City indicated that city restaurants are too loud. The exces- sive noise in many places is actually more damaging to hearing than car horns and jackhammers. Of a random sampling of nearly 40 restaurants, bars, stores, and gyms in NYC, nearly one- third exceeded healthy noise levels. Bars and restaurants were the worst offenders, some registering noise levels of up to 105 decibels, levels that cause headaches and hearing loss. (Note: A decibel is unit for expressing the relative inten- sity of sounds on a scale from zero for the least-percepti- ble sound to about 130.). For comparison, a subway train pulling into a station typically registers at 84 decibels, while the sound of normal conversation is 60 decibels. Designing for auditory comfort should be a priority. For a restaurant, interior designers usually work on the front of the house, or dining area, including signage and menu graphics. The back of the house, or kitchen, is a critical functional area and typically designed by independent specialists, Figure 14-14. Here are some areas of the restaurant facility on which designers typically work, with more details about dining room design. ■ hostess station ■ reception/waiting area ■ payment/checkout area ■ patron seating—include multiple types such as banquette, bench, and table and chair confi gurations ■ outdoor seating ■ private rooms ■ bar area ■ take-out/delivery station ■ optional buffet ■ public restrooms ■ back of the house areas—kitchen/food prep, delivery/ receiving dock, storage, offi ce, and liquor storage The dining area refers to spaces ranging from an infor- mal café to an elegant fi ve-star restaurant. Fire code regulations guide the safety of patrons. The dining area should accommodate as many guests as possible without compromising the patron’s comfort or safety. Leave enough space for servers to circulate around the table and guests. Make sure the table height is not so high that the diners cannot see the food. Link to History Emergence of the Restaurant Eating has always been a sociable event. The restaurant as an institution, however, did not fully emerge until the seventeenth century. The word restaurant initially appeared in the sixteenth century, meaning a restorative broth. By 1771, the term evolved to reference an “establishment specializing in the sale of restorative foods,” too. It was the aspiring middle classes of post-revolutionary France that began using the term restaurant as it is used today. The fi rst restaurant proprietor is believed to have been A. Boulanger, a soup vendor, who opened his business in Paris in 1765. In the United States, by the 1930s some movement was seen toward simplifying restaurant design from something grandiose, to the paradigm of dining out in the 1960s. With a diversity of eating venues and socially mobile patrons hungry for new experiences, design became a powerful tool to distinguish between the new bistros, brasseries, cafés, diners, and casual dining chains that emerged then and still emerge today. Analyze It! Interview several older adults you know about the availability and design of restaurants in their youth. What aspects of restaurant design have evolved since this time? Predict how restaurant design may change in the future based on human need.