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The explosion of Instagram’s popularity has been a huge boon to restaurant owners. Never has there been a more economical and exponentially effective marketing channel for restaurants. It’s come to the point where many restaurants are now designing their restaurants specifically to leverage the power of Instagram. And you may want to consider it, too!

 

In this first part, we’ll walk through optimizing your restaurant for Instagram, starting at the renovation phase:

 

The feature wall

This will be the stand-out piece that anchors your entire restaurant identity – from customer experience to Instagram marketing. Not only will it strengthen customers’ impression of your restaurant, but it’ll be a magnet for Instagram influencers to pose in front of. If it’s done well, you’ll get a second lineup to your restaurant just for that wall.

Whether you design the feature wall on the exterior or interior or both, make sure you align it with the restaurant brand you want to create. Scrutinize every colour shade, lighting angle, and texture. This is where you should absolutely be a perfectionist. The feature wall will become one of the most photographed and share-worthy aspects of your restaurant.

Find a creative way to display your restaurant’s name or logo on the wall. Hire a local artist to paint a colourful mural. Mount intricate carvings backlit by LED lights. Hook up a custom neon sign with a quirky phrase or your restaurant slogan. The sky and imagination is the limit when it comes to ideas for the feature wall.

 

Décor reinforcements

Take the time to think about what you’d like the theme or atmosphere of your restaurant to be. Then reinforce that via thoughtful selections of décor. Consider not only the look of each item, but also the mood that it brings up by itself and when it’s combined with other items.

 

Finishing touch for the walls and floor

We’ve talked about the feature wall earlier, but don’t stop there! You can do more with the finishes of the other restaurant walls, too. Make them as elaborate as whimsical wallpaper or as simple as the colour scheme of your restaurant logo. Eye-catching flooring is also huge on Instagram. Spend a little extra on distinctive flooring patterns or textures. You’ll know it works when you see your restaurant’s Instagram geotag feed blow up with shoes-on-floor photos.

 

Unique furniture

Furniture plays an important role in restaurant theme as well. It opens up the door to many interior design possibilities. The style, material, colour, and even the ergonomics of furniture all contribute to a memorable sitting experience for your customers. What you want to do is make sure the experience they’re getting matches the theme you’re building.

 

Ceiling features

You can affect the mood inside simply with ceiling height and its architectural features. Keep it low if you want an intimate setting and raise it up if you want beautiful chaos. Exposed ventilation will give your restaurant an industrial edge while hiding them behind waffle ceilings and crown mouldings will give it an elegant air. As for the main lighting fixtures, choose the ones that best complement the desired atmosphere.

 

This sets the stage for a strong Instagram community to thrive around your restaurant. Next, we’ll get into the finer details of attracting more Instagram followers and engaging them.

 

Office layouts show how much management values productivity, creativity, and company culture. Here are all the ways your company can make its statement:

 

Closed office

Everyone has their own enclosed office in this work environment. The door is the signal to others whether they’re available or not for a conversation. They can fill their office with as many personal effects as they want and lock the door at the end of the day.

The advantage of this layout is that employees can meet clients in private. They also have a quiet place to focus on their projects. What’s more, there’s security as sensitive information can be locked up. Most importantly, they have a home away from home that’ll put them more at ease to perform their best.

The silos setting though makes collaboration difficult or nearly impossible to achieve. Since everyone’s isolated in their private little worlds, it’s harder for employees to know what’s going on with the company as a whole.

This kind of environment is best suited for law, medical, accounting, or consulting offices.

 

Open office

In an open office, most of the walls – both physical and metaphorical – are torn down. Everyone works in close proximity to one another with no closed doors getting in the way of communication.

This breaks up hierarchical structures and encourages communication among employees. With a permanent open-door policy, an open office fosters a sense of community. It’s a more relaxed setting that invites employees to give their input. It’s also the most cost-effective way to maximize use of space.

What you have to account for though is the work environment being much noisier. And because there aren’t any enclosed spaces, there’s a lack of privacy for staff who need to concentrate.

All this only describes an open office in general because it’s actually a very broad term when it comes to office layouts. Open offices can be broken down into these different types:

Cubicles

This was one of the earliest open office types where cubicles were laid out in large grid patterns. The modern variation is not that rigid anymore. Essentially, each workstation is enclosed on three sides by dividers.

Employees get more privacy with this design. They can focus better with dividers made of good sound-insulation material. They get all that while still having the option to communicate freely with colleagues in an open office environment.

The drawback is that it may cause a sense of claustrophobia for some employees – especially for those whose cubicle is in the middle of the room. One way to counter that is to use glass dividers to let in more light to filter through cubicles.

Cubicle open offices are ideal for customer service, technical support, and sales offices.

Semi-dividers

This is a modification of the cubicle style to address the claustrophobia issue. Everyone is still partitioned off, but the dividers are half the usual height.

That way, employees can actually see and talk with each other. It outlines their individual space without contributing to feelings of isolation.

Noise and privacy can be a concern though for employees who need to focus.

Consider this kind of set-up if you’re an advertising, news, or magazine firm.

Team zones

In this arrangement, staff are grouped together by their team functions. Partitions may separate different teams, but there are usually none between team members.

The advantage is that teams can focus on collaboration with their members. They’re free from distractions outside the team. Discussions and brainstorming can happen on the fly without setting up special meetings.

This can lead to feelings of disconnect though with other teams in the company. There’s very little cross-departmental communication on a daily basis. General meetings would have to be scheduled more often.

Having said that, this is a great layout for software/app development and video game development companies.

Nomadic

This is probably the most minimalist style of them all. There are no workstations anywhere. Instead, the entire office is a common area of couches, lounge chairs, and shared tables. Everyone works off of laptops, tablets, and smartphones. They get everything wirelessly from the cloud or company servers.

With this set-up, technology is fully embraced to streamline company operations. The lack of barriers for staff also create lots of potential for creative collaborations. Spontaneous conversations are not only possible, but also necessary to find out how they can help one another. Another benefit is that infrastructure and capital costs are significantly lowered.

Of course, this means that privacy is hard to come by in the office. The lack of a dedicated workstation often leads to a lack of a day-start routine. That can be a major cause for drop in productivity.

Even so, web development or online companies may like this kind of work environment.

 

Hybrid office

It’s difficult to pigeon-hole companies as strictly closed office or open office. A particular office layout may appeal to your company operations, but your company culture may have other needs. The reality is that most companies opt for a hybrid office set-up, with elements of both closed and open offices.

 

However you mix-and-match your office layouts, just don’t forget to create an inviting office space.

 

Quality is the result of rigorous testing from design down to the manufacturing process. That’s what you can expect with luxury kitchen appliances. For example, Miele goes as far as to run silk stockings over their appliances to make sure there aren’t any unseen rough edges. Sub-Zero and Wolf put their appliances through extreme conditions to test their durability.

 

Luxury kitchen appliances are for home chefs who know what features will complement their cooking style and habits. They know what they need to create their signature gourmet dishes. If this sounds like you or if you’re on your way there, these are the latest features to consider:

 

Cooktop

Modular cooktops are where it’s at when you want to customize the kitchen to your cooking preferences. You can modify your cooktop with electric/gas/induction elements, fryers, grills, steamers, and even teppanyaki modules. You should also get cooktops with dual-zone elements so you don’t have to worry what size of cookware to use. Cooktops with a smart surface allow you to change heat power/location simply by sliding your cookware to a different cooking area.

 

Dishwasher

At the luxury level, dishwashers vie for the top spot through speed and efficiency. This results in variations on deep-cleaning with pressurized multi-directional jets and evenly circulated air from heat elements. The target is clean and dry dishes in one hour or less. Premium dishwashers also come with built-in water filtration systems as well as automatic sensors for more efficient power and water levels.

 

Range

The top-quality ranges are all about controllable power and versatility. Dual-fuel ranges and dual-stacked burners are a must for precision heat control. You should be able to customize the stovetop combination of gas burners, electric plates, French plaque, lava-rock grill, and reversible griddles. You’ll also want one gas and one electric oven on the bottom with one of them a steam-convection combo. Then top it off with Wi-Fi connectability and built-in temperature probes for remote-controlled heat settings.

 

Range hood

For range hoods, first decide whether you want ducted or ductless. For air quality, go with ducted; for installation convenience, go with ductless. What comes after is a juggle of features to balance highest fan efficiency with lowest noise level. Then there are the cosmetic designs – lots of them! You can choose from designs like wall chimney, island, built-in, under-cabinet, or integrated. You can even get some that are disguised as a piece of art or as part of a light fixture.

 

Refrigerator

If you like to have lots of fresh ingredients on hand, get a refrigerator that’s restaurant-grade in both temperature control and size. You also need separate compressors and evaporators to set different cooling temperatures for each compartment. That’s to ensure you cover the broad range of fresh ingredient cooling and humidity needs. Also, smart fridge doors are the future. Some have tinted glass panels that’ll turn transparent with a knock so you can see inside even with the door closed. Others have a touchscreen that can serve as a communication/entertainment system.

 

Don’t forget that you also have the option of integrated looks for your appliances. Some brands offer custom front panels or flush builds so your appliances can blend into your kitchen design. And, of course, be prepared to allocate at least 14% of your kitchen design-build budget to appliances. It’s worth it though when the end result is the ultimate luxury kitchen of your dreams.

 

Contrary to popular belief, dining rooms are making a comeback in modern hones. 73% of responses in the Home Buyer Reference survey of January 2017 viewed the dining room as “essential or desirable” (National Association of Home Builders).

 

Why the resurgence in popularity? Well, these may be some of the reasons:

 

Family oasis in a hectic lifestyle

It’s tough living in modern life sometimes. It’s not so much that modern life is more difficult than life in the past. It can’t be with the sheer amount of technology around us to make our lives easier. It’s just that we’re so occupied by that technology sometimes that we lose sight of ourselves and one another.

It’s most apparent during mealtimes. Ever since the introduction of TV dinners in the 1950s, family meals have slowly descended into an everyone-for-themselves rush to a flickering screen.

Bringing back the dining room is one way to step back from the brink. The beauty of a dining room is that, by design, its only purpose is gathering everyone around to sit down for a meal. There are no TV screens or computer monitors or distractions of any other kind. It’s just the family, friends, food, and the conversation in front of you. It gives everyone a chance to re-learn how to focus on the present and how to be mindful to one another.

No matter how busy everyone’s schedules are, it’s nice to know there’s a constant like family dinners in the dining room to depend on.

 

Healthier eating

A study done in 2013 concluded that not paying attention to your meal may add to weight gain. Howard LeWine, M.D., of Harvard Health Publications elaborates more in that article: “For example, after you start eating, it takes 20 minutes or so before the brain begins to start sending out ‘I’m full’ or ‘I’m not hungry anymore’ signals that turn off appetite. If you are hurrying or not paying attention, it’s easy to take in many more calories than you need in 20 minutes.”

So when you have everyone taking meals in the distraction-free environment of a dining room, you’re promoting a healthier eating habit. You can even take it a step further by asking everyone to leave their cell phones at the entrance of the dining room. That’s crucial in this day and age when people focus so much on waiting for the next notification ping on their phones to arrive.

 

Clear separation of activity zones

While open-concept plans are meant to increase opportunities for family interaction, they’ve also diminished the amount of personal space everyone occasionally needs. How many times have you felt like you had nowhere to go except your bedroom because one of your family members were entertaining guests in the mega kitchen-living-room space?

A dining room allows them to chat long into the night while you can still relax in front of the living room TV in the evening. You can actually have some personal time without feeling trapped.

 

Fashion statement in the middle of your home

People used to dismiss dining rooms because they pictured a stuffy room with hardwood monstrosities you can’t wait to be excused from. But what if it doesn’t have to be that way?

In the open-concept areas, your interior decoration choices are limited because everything has to blend in together. In an enclosed dining room though, it can be its own little world.

You can make it as eccentric in style as you want. In fact, that’s how you can break free of the stereotypical dining room image. Here is the room where you can let your personal style shine while making it both modern and cozy. It’ll certainly be a conversation piece when you’re entertaining guests.

 

All this doesn’t mean the dining room can only be used for family meals. Feel free to give it another purpose during the day! Just make sure you can quickly reset it back to a dining room when dinner’s ready.

 

 

Running a business is very labour-intensive and green initiatives are often the last thing on management’s mind. But if you’re investing in your office renovation already, take the opportunity to put in place these green initiatives to make your office stand out as an environmentally conscious one:

 

Leafy building roof

A leafy building roof offers many green benefits, unlike a leaky building roof. There’s a lot of unused space on a building rooftop. What if you can turn that space into a natural insulator and air purifier that prolongs the life of your roof?

That’s what a green roof can do for your office building. The plants on the roof also retain rainwater, much of which would have run off to add more stress to the sewer system. What’s more, a green roof create a safe haven for birds that often have limited habitat options in the city. This will turn your rooftop into a tranquil spot for staff breaks or meetings. You can even start a community vegetable garden up there for your employees.

 

Energy-efficient office machines

The office machines are what make your business hum along so you’ll make a big difference with energy-efficient ones. A good place to start is to only purchase and install office machines with the ENERGY STAR symbol. From there, you can optimize the settings for maximum power-saving without hindering your office operations. When possible, get multifunction machines to cut electricity consumption.

 

Paperless filing system

Let’s face it, most documents don’t really need to be printed out. With the ease of cloud storage and decreasing costs of high-capacity servers these days, everything can be secured electronically. Set up a central knowledge management system where all company documents – from meeting agendas to office policies – can be stored digitally and organized by folders or tags. You can either build your own system or use a ready-made corporate one designed for this very purpose. Research the pros and cons of each product and find the one that best suits your business needs.

Have your staff share documents by linking to the original copy on the knowledge management system, rather than attaching copies to emails. This will lower the temptation to print out the attachments and also makes sure that everyone always gets the most up-to-date version of the document. If people absolutely have to print something, make double-sided printing the default setting on all computers and office machines.

One more thing: emails are actually not very efficient in carrying out discussions. They clog up server space and create more temptations for printing. Instead, use a chat system like Slack to get input from staff. If you don’t want to use a third-party app, you can build your own secure system or use a different proprietary software hosted on your own servers.

 

Ban single-use disposable products

Single-serve coffee machines are notorious for the incredible amount of waste they produce with those coffee pods. The only reason they’re popular is that they provide flavoured cups of coffee that are slightly better tasting than the regular coffee. But what if you stock your coffee room with the good stuff instead? Pretty sure your staff will enjoy fair-trade organic coffee from a batch brewer just as much, if not more. And you’re doing your part for the world with your coffee bean choice!

While you’re at it, eliminate styrofoam/paper cups from your office. Provide re-usable water bottles/cups for all your staff instead. You can even have them all printed with your company logo to reinforce your company image.

 

Recycling and compost program

First, check if your city already has a municipal recycling and/or compost program you can register your office for. If not, find out if there are any companies in town that will regularly collect recycling and/or compost from your office. Compost collecting companies are usually hard to find though. Use the compost for your green roof if you have one set up.

 

Organized carpooling or public transit benefits

Instead of everyone driving to work on their own and adding to the city’s carbon emissions, take the lead on organizing a carpooling system. Another option is to encourage public transit use by offering public transit tickets or passes to your staff.

 

Green committee

Finally, set up a “Green Committee” in your office that can look after managing all the above initiatives as well as coming up with new ideas to make your office eco-friendly.