If you want to make the best choice of new restaurant furniture, it's worth thinking about getting your diners involved, especially if you have repeat customers who you wouldn't want to lose during a revamp.
There's a wide range of different restaurant furniture to choose from, including traditional straight-backed dining chairs, ergonomic wooden seats, padded upholstery, and less formal stools, leather chairs and sofas.
Of course you need to have the final say in your investment, but research suggests that those with a stake in running a restaurant - including not just the owners, but the employees too - might have different views than the establishment's customers do.
Writing in the International Journal of Leisure and Tourism Marketing, a team from the UK's University of Derby and a collaborator from Edith Cowan University in Australia note certain discrepancies between those on the supply-side and those on the demand-side.
They studied a training restaurant, staffed by 73 students and with 222 paying guests, and found disagreement between the two groups in their assessment of the restaurant's performance in areas like the selection of beverages, and its level of entertainment, such as dishes being prepared or finished at the table.
Significantly, they also found that the students themselves became less satisfied with around half of the 13 criteria measured, depending on how far through their university education they had progressed.
"Despite their limited number, it became clear that third-year students were less in agreement than their first-year and, in most cases, with their second-year counterparts," the article states.
"In fact, third-year students perceived the least value for money in the delivery of six of the 13 items, most notably the style/design of the available restaurant furniture and with the selection of beverages offered."
The findings are a reminder that, unless you have a very clear vision of how you want your restaurant interior to look, as well as other aspects of how you operate, it's a good idea to seek a second opinion.
You can do this by asking your customers - informally, via feedback cards or in special scheduled focus groups - or simply contact us to find out more about what's on-trend in our restaurant furniture range.