Making the most of your venue

Opening a food outlet, regardless of whether it’s a fine dining restaurant or a sandwich bar brings with it a whole host of considerations. It’s not that long ago when, once you’d secured your premises, decorated it, sorted the kitchen and decided on the menu you were pretty much good to go. For modern day restaurateurs, hotel bosses and café owners there is now so much more to take into consideration – and that include ensuring that your premises are social media friendly. The influence of sites like Instagram should never be underestimated and some could argue that the look of the place, right down to the plates your food is served on is equally as important, at least in terms of awareness. While there’s absolutely no substitute for great food and drink, a creative and colourful space can definitely boost your bottom line. Take for example New York’s Pietro Nolita, an Italian restaurant where everything happens to be pink. It has a respectable 42,500 Instagram followers but add to that influencers who have visited and snapped a few shots and its profile goes through the roof. One picture was shared by an influencer with more than 500,000 followers – who can get better advertising than that? As a company which supplies ranges of tableware from a range of major brands and which is sole distributor for a whole host of others, we are certainly noticing a change in what is currently popular. Mix and match colours, pattern and plain designs and unique shapes all serve the purpose of being a great backdrop to showcase the chef’s best work – and also just happen to provide a social media ready photo opp. There’s certainly a return to more organic and natural looking tableware too – and we believe this is a direct result of the trend towards being more environmentally friendly and the growth in veganism and vegetarianism. If you’re pretty social media savvy yourself then tap into influencers with interests in these areas and share your own images. It’s important that what you choose matches the style of your venue. There’s no point in having the formality of fine china if you’re a laid back, urban café or bar popping up in an reworked shipping container or in a converted warehouse. Your style needs to be reflected throughout and gives coherent and easily understood messaging – which again is important if you want to reach a potential new audience. If your look is industrial go for plain colours, metallics or earthy tableware, rustic glasses or even wood. For a more Mediterranean, boho vibe then you can afford to use bright multicoloured crockery -help people to remember their happy holiday memories and they could soon be on their way to your door. A firm vision which permeates every aspect of your business helps people understand the offer and, in a world, where everything is a photo opportunity it’s more important than ever. It’s something that’s attracted attention from media ranging from national newspapers like the Independent to magazines like Stylist, all of which have featured "insta-suitable" tableware. There’s no doubt that has filtered down from what’s available to the trade, inspired by those chefs and restaurateurs that everyone wants to emulate. The importance of “foodography” has even inspired an Israeli winery to run a dining experience/photography workshop when members of the public eat a fabulous diner and learn how to photograph their food on the best plates.