How to Create Unique Tabletop Displays in Your Restaurant
Beautiful, interesting and memorable design is crucial to a restaurant's success. Restaurant reviews generally make some mention of atmosphere and how restaurants look. Furnishings, color and good design are all important in creating a beautiful restaurant. One area sometimes overlooked is the restaurant tabletop. Restaurant tabletops offer owners a prime opportunity to personalize the dining experience for their guests. Tables become private places for patrons to enjoy the surroundings; a unique tabletop can enhance the dining experience and make it even more memorable.
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Instructions
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Create displays around your restaurant's theme, name or purpose. For a steakhouse restaurant, use speckled enamelware coffeepots to hold flowers or tie red bandannas around mason jars and fill with daisies. If your restaurant is in a theater district, glue small dramatic masks on floral picks and incorporate them into floral displays. For tea rooms, fill colorful teapots and cups with flowers for your tabletops.
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Make tabletop displays that reference the seasons. Add interesting or unique holidays to the roster to create eye-catching table displays. Glass jars filled with candy conversation hearts make interesting Valentine's Days displays, and small Halloween cauldrons spray-painted gold and filled with gold chocolate coins make good St. Patrick's displays. President's Day can be celebrated with presidential paper dolls placed on small stands, cherry tree blossoms or jars filled with vintage election buttons.
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Incorporate barware or glassware into your table displays to promote a drink or create an interesting display. Use martini glasses filled with colorful candies or water and floating candles. Put wine glasses of different sizes on tables and fill with sea glass and colorful rocks or pebbles. Purchase small glass pitchers and fill with water and a single betta fish. Fill a wine carafe with popcorn, pretzels or other snacks for more casual restaurants; fill demitasse cups with single flowers such as gardenias for fine dining locations.
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Create elaborate floral displays or use natural items to add interest to your restaurant's tabletops. Buy different types of Bonsai trees for tabletops, fill jars with river rocks or seashells or purchase dried flowers that will last for years to come. Display live or fresh flowers in unique vases such as galvanized buckets, clear bottles of strawberry or orange soda, antique bottles and empty, cleaned cans of tomato soup or foods from international groceries.
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Add interest to tabletops with games. Paint an entire tabletop picture frame (including the glass) with brightly colored magnetic paint. Put small bowls or jars with magnetic poetry pieces or plastic alphabets on tables to allow patrons to decorate frames. Fill bowls with colorful dice and add a sheet of instructions on how to play different dice games. Purchase vintage games or small travel games and put them on tables. Fill jelly jars with sharpened pencils and place on tables along with copies of crossword puzzles or word games that can function as place mats.
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Tips & Warnings
Create storage crates, boxes or bags for table top items. When changing displays, you will need to have a place where you can protect and store items. Keep display items together to make it easy to recreate displays at a later date.
Take pictures of finished displays to recreate them at other tables or to remember them for other times of the year. Put the pictures in a binder or small album to keep them organized and secure.
Small items for scrapbooking, doll houses or jewelry making can be useful in creating tabletop displays. These items are available at crafts, hardware and discount stores.
Be careful not to make tabletop displays too large. They should enhance the dining experience, not hinder it. Make sure that guests can see each other over the tops of the displays as well.
Use items in your display that are approved by your local health department. If you choose to use live or natural items in your displays, be sure that the health department will not find you in violation of local codes.
Be sure that items are secured in place. Glue down small items so they cannot be taken or vandalized. Use super-strength glue to secure lids to jars filled with items.
References
- "Design and Equipment for Restaurants and Foodservice: A Management View"; Costas Katsigirs; 2008
- Food Service Warehouse: Merchandising, POP Displays and Advertising Within the Restaurant
Resources
- Photo Credit George Doyle/Stockbyte/Getty Images
