How Cleanliness Affects Your Restaurant Ambiance

How Cleanliness Affects Your Restaurant Ambiance

As a restaurant owner you may be most concerned about how your food tastes, after all, that’s what the critics love and it’s what will bring the customers back. Or is it? In fact, food is not the first thing a customer will see. There are two important tests that you have to pass within moments of a customer arriving in your restaurant, that’s before they even look at the menu or make a decision on the quality of your food. If you fail the first tests, you’re not going to get the repeat business you need.

How Cleanliness Affects Your Restaurant Ambiance

1. Appearance

As soon as a customer walks through the door they should be greeted. This doesn’t mean pressured into ordering. All it means is a cheerful welcome and simple instructions, these should tell the customer whether they can seat themselves, need a reservation, or have to order at the counter.

In return the customer will note the cheerful demeanor and they’ll look at whether the staff is wearing the appropriate safety workwear. This means hairnets if working with food, clean uniforms, and even the right cleaning equipment in the toilets, kitchen utensils, dishwashers, and more. You’ll be surprised at how many people head straight to the toilet to check out the cleanliness of your establishment.

2. Cleanliness

That brings us nicely to the second point, cleanliness. A dirty restaurant suggests a lack of care both at the table and in the kitchen. That’s not going to inspire people to eat at your establishment.

Clean floors and tables are, a given but you also need to ensure that all the other elements of your front of the house is clean. Pay particular attention to the nooks and crannies, accumulated dirt in these places is a sure sign to the customer that you’re not serious about cleanliness.

It’s a good idea to sit in various seats around the restaurant to see where people’s eyes are drawn, those are the spots that need to be extra clean!

How Cleanliness Affects Ambience

When you have a clean restaurant, customers tend to be more relaxed. Their focus will be on the food and what others are doing. In short, they’ll be content and this will show. In turn, other customers will reflect the same mood and this will create a relaxed, but enjoyable atmosphere.

Don’t forget that the cleanliness actually starts before someone enters the restaurant. The windows and walls need to be clean, the front of the restaurant should be well lit, and the general presentation inviting.

This should be capped with a delightful aroma as they enter the building, there is little better at setting the ambiance and relaxing people than the fresh aroma of food being cooked. If you can get the sub-conscious element right then the rest will follow naturally.

You can’t create the ambiance artificially, it comes from contented customers. If you have the cleanliness and staff presentation right then the only other thing is to get the cooking right!