Dining out in restaurants is an important component of our lives in America. We all love to go out for a meal, and whether it’s fast casual dining or a higher-end restaurant experience, the act of arriving and the enjoyment of sharing a meal in a café, bistro or luxury environment has become a part of the fabric of our social lives. It is as much the exploration of new cuisines as it is the chance to be engaged with friends and loved ones in a pampered and highly social setting—or least it was.

As restaurants open back up and people sit down to enjoy meals with groups of friends and family again, now is an opportune time to imagine how restaurants might function differently going forward. How can we, as designers, help our valued restauranteurs set up for a new successful future?

First, restaurants will need to accommodate flexibility in planning. Fixed table spacing will likely remain modifiable, further apart today and perhaps closer together in the future, but spatial distancing is not necessarily a bad thing in a restaurant. Distanced seating was driven by health reasons, but if we re-think the problem where space is rebranded as “luxury,” then the dining experience itself is redefined and transformed. Social distancing becomes a positive which may alter how we view our dining experiences in the future.

New restaurants can easily create a sense of separation and protection from other patrons without making the experience feel makeshift. Creative design can clearly achieve this objective. For interior spaces, designers will likely find new solutions as to how we sit and interact. For example, paying close attention to the use of décor, decorative glass screens, or high-backed booths in addition to other design devices, will add sophistication, distinction and elegance to social distancing and separations, with the ability to be modified over time as health concerns diminish. 

It has been equally exciting to see the clever use of outdoor dining spaces that have come into style this past year. Whether in the form of dining igloos, yurts, tents or open patios, diners love eating alfresco. Architects may have the opportunity to design more permanent outdoor dining spaces going forward that replace the temporary, ad-hoc solutions from 2020. This, in turn, could make for more lively street culture where interior programs spill out into the urban realm. 

Traditional dining and delivery of open, food-laden plates could easily be replaced with the old-world, gracious delivery of your dinner by a server carrying a domed cloche, a stainless-steel covering for your food. Keeping with tradition of the early parts of the last century, having the server present a dome tableside and then removing it with a flourish was a great spectacle and a symbol of dining elegance. Maybe it is time to reintroduce a similar gesture into today’s dining room once again? 

Or perhaps a more contemporary approach borrowed from past cultures and traditions but made new. What if meals were presented to the guest in a re-imagined, but thoroughly modern, Japanese-influenced bento box with a lid? Not only does this form of presentation provide safety from airborne viruses, it also doubles as an insulator for keeping food warm and fresh from the kitchen, not to mention it is aesthetically pleasing. This approach creates a new form of dining elegance that protects and elevates at the same time. 

Likewise, bars could offer drinks and cocktails presented with stylish removable coverings to protect the precious liquid contents. We could take a cue here from the early church, which historically used a chalice veil of silk or linen over the sacred wine. Wouldn’t it be grand to have your cocktail served with a flourishing decorative covering? It removes the ordinary and replaces it with the extraordinary!