u/dsafsfa

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Update #1:

Wow, thanks everyone for replying. I couldn't have made a better decision than to ask here. Everyone I know was telling me 'ah yes, its a good idea, it looks nice, blah blah. But I didn't have the courage or guts to believe in myself and leave things as they were and just improve/tweak some small things.

A lot of folks are asking, but we sell burgers. Its a burger joint. Not necessarily fine dining style, but more like fast casual. We tried to capture more volume & with focus on speed I guess.

From what I can summarise from your answers, lighting seems to be the core fundamental issue. Then its the sort of combination of cold materials (steel, tiles & diomand hatched patterns). Finally, some would say its the booth design.

I'll work on this. Try to salvage what I can and plan another major makeover. Thanks everyone for the absolutely brutal, throat-cutting feedback. It'll make a funny case here for a while i'm sure (what not to do in interior design!)

Update #2:

I've removed those hideous flourescent tubes and its immediately better. That was probably the quickest solution to toning it down.

I don't want to revert the design necessarily back to where it was. But I'll pivot towards the 'spirit' of that design.

Update #3: Damn nothing could prepare me for the brutality of yee lot. I love it. This really is one of those cases of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it.' Ironically, i was the one who designed the first one. I guess i just trusted other people a bit too much.

I should clarify those hatched patterns are just vinyl layed over a stud mdf wall. That can be changed relatively easily. So can the corrugated steel (but i think it might look nice when the lights are warmer?) The difficult part is the tiles. I really can't do anything about that for now.

Final Update: Honestly thank you so much Reddit. Some of you really gave helpful feedback. I admit I am completely shattered, in all aspects of the word. Never felt this depressed in my life. Ah well. It is what it is. I can only keep moving forward. This is the last update before I get back to work.

Images:

Old Design (the wooden floor image)

New Design (hatched walls)

Third (concept - final version, from another side)

TL:DR

I basically committed to a design that I was convinced would improve our restaurant experience - a brighter, higher energy space. But It may have backfired. And now, I'm not sure how I can pivot or even restore our original vibe. Looking for advise / brutal honesty and feedback. Really beating myself up over this.

Long Version:

I got a design done from a professional company near me and they produced a concept for a new floor/dining area for customers that I thought would work nice.

Some context:

Originally, the restaurant had a sort of rustic look. It was a little dark - you could barely see what was inside during the daytime. And at night, it had a warm look. A lot of black everywhere, on the walls, ceiling, dark coloured wood, chairs etc. The only light source was some warm toned edisson bulbs.

The space felt run-down more than anything. But it sort of got by. Anyways, it was created on a low budget (like, just some paint and wallpaper & a mural artist to do some chalk art).

The objective of the renewal was to increase daytime visbility, lighting and ultimately, sales. We wanted to make the most use of our space and meet competitor quality & customer satisfaction (we got a lot of complaints about our atmosphere). We also wanted to create some extra seating & add some booths for larger groups (of which we get quite a lot of)

For better or worse, it seems most people who ate at our place, or who reviewed it, said the atmosphere was dull.

Post-Refreshment:

The idea for the designer was to go for an industrial vibe over a rustic vibe (corrugated steel panelling on walls, a sort of diamond hatched half wall trailing the length of the unit, with a cove for LEDs). The objective of the steel panelling was to reflect the various hues and accents of light sources. The concept itself was bright. Looked pretty cool on visuals.

But when we did the works, we noticed a substantial drop in footfall traffic (-15%) and less customers during our previously busy hours. I dont even know if people are satisfied or not, but now I've invested time & money and have to watch our performance take a hit. And its crushing/ putting me under immense pressure.

My Case:

So i came here, to reddit. To where I was hoping I could get some help/advise on what is the best course of action to restore the mood or atmosphere I had before without needing to fork up a tonne of money again. Based on your guys' experience and insights.

I don't even know if the issue is a visual one. I just know that it wasn't like this before. And its definitely a result of something that was done to this renewed space.