Restaurant Design Guide

A commercial kitchen layout generally provides 5 distinct areas for meal productions:

  • Food prep station
  • Meal cooking
  • Service area
  • Cleaning/washing
  • Storage

This setup is purposely designed to keep staff within their defined stations with less movement between spaces.

Restrooms should be accessible but situated away from the dining room. A restroom door that adjoins a dining area creates an uncomfortable situation for both the staff and patrons. After you’ve identified a kitchen space in your floor plan, you may want to consider restroom placement. Placing your restroom near your kitchen (as shown in the diagram below) can save you plumbing expenses by tying it into adjacent lines. Restrooms should be spacious but not cramped championed with easy-to-clean fixtures.

In the diagram you can also see a typical floor plan for a casual dining restaurant, including the kitchen and restroom placing. It also includes some technical information regarding proper spacing of isles, booths, tables and chairs. The seating capacity is calculated based on a restaurant design module elaborated on in our restaurant tables spacing article.

restaurant floor plans

In order to facilitate the work behind the scenes, a well designed kitchen is a must. Having clearly defined work stations for food preparation, cleaning area, and service stations helps making the chaos of a busy restaurant kitchen easier. Given enough space, the recommended layout is one that includes a kitchen island, walk in storage and refrigeration areas and spacious isles, as shown in the diagram below:

restaurant kitchen floor plans