Furniture can be seen as both a functional as well as aesthetic element of any restaurant’s interior design. The functional aspects of this type of thing have to do with offering customers comfortable seating arrangements that can allow them to dine with ease. On the aesthetic side of things, the kind of design that your furniture has been assembled with as well as various other visual cues can have a huge impact on how people feel when they first end up entering your eatery.

A key aspect of modern restaurant trends has involved an amalgamation of sorts of functional as well as aesthetic sensibilities. Basically, functional elements are starting to be incorporated into the design of chairs for restaurants among other pieces of furniture. Tables are being optimized in a similar manner as well, and it’s all about trying to provide the customer with an experience that would facilitate virtually all of their needs being met. We have a number of suggestions that can successfully integrate function with style, and there is clear potential for these suggestions to inculcate a paradigm shift in the industry that could change the way we dine forever.

A great way to start thinking functional design is to start considering the needs of the customer. While smoking can sometimes be banned in indoor spaces, a number of restaurants manage to get special dispensation in this regard. What’s more is that there usually aren’t any restrictions placed on smoking in outdoor settings which means that a lot of the customers that you might be getting are going to look for a dining experience that they can accentuate with a cigarette once the meal is over.

This offers a very unique opportunity for the savvy restaurateur to make it easier for these customers to get their smoking fix. One great example here would involve ashtrays and the like. You probably give your customer an ashtray that they can use to dispose of their cigarette butts, but what if this was incorporated into the furniture itself? You can quite easily carve an ashtray of sorts into the surface of the table, or potentially into the armrest of the chair as well. This provides customers with easy access to an ashtray whenever they need it rather than having to signal to a server and subsequently waiting until said server has the time to bring them what they need.

If you really want to make this ashtray functionally sound, you can add a layer of metal into it. Wood tends to burn if you press something hot against it. This can result in an unpleasant odor as well as unsightly blemishes appearing on the furniture. Hence, it makes sense to add metal to the built in ashtrays, or perhaps some kind of lacquer if you feel like metal might spoil the overall look of the wood. The point here is to make it easier for the customer to enjoy their meal the way that they prefer, so whatever you can do to facilitate such a thing is great.

The concept of functional design doesn’t end here. It can go far beyond just facilitating the needs of the customer and can become something that makes the life of a restaurant owner much easier as well. A number of space saving mechanisms can be added to furniture that would make them significantly more functionally sound. Once again, all you need to do to start conceiving ideas in this vein is to look at problems you might face with regards to your furniture.

Crafting chairs that fit in with the dimensions of your tables can be great for example. This would result in a situation wherein the chairs would not be sticking out at awkward angles when they are not being used. Rather, they would fit into the table perfect, and can be extracted whenever the need arises. This is a great representation of how functional design can improve aesthetics as well, since you can clearly imagine how table optimized chairs would look really good since they would create clean lines whenever they are stowed away. This would provide both space saving as well as aesthetic advantages.

If you want to take functional design in a slightly different direction, you could consider adding wheels to your chairs or tables. This can be a bit tricky to pull off, but if done right it can make restaurant organizational logistics an absolute breeze. You need to be able to shift the layout of your furniture at the drop of a hat in situations where you suddenly get a large batch of customers and you need to move things around in order to make space for them.

One thing that you might want to do if you want to add wheels to your furniture is put a locking mechanism in place as well. It can be very frustrating for a customer if their chairs or tables keep shifting while they are trying to enjoy a meal. A locking mechanism can be used to prevent the wheels form moving, thereby keeping the furniture stable and in one place.

As you can clearly see, the sky is the limit when you start thinking about furniture design from a functional perspective. Postmodern furniture design doesn’t have to treat functionalism and aesthetics as two separate entities. Rather, it proves that thinking of the two holistically can often result in some pretty strong results, and a number of restaurants are already starting to see the advantages of this type of thing. You can factor the needs of your niche into any functional design elements that you try to implement.

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Tel Aviv used to be an urbanist’s nightmare, but it is learning fast. And it is growing on me though I like Jaffa, its sister city better. When I first met Tel Aviv 20 years ago it was polluted and noisy. Now it’s trying with all its might to do good by its people: The City has launched a creative solution to enable restaurants and bars to extend their outdoors seating areas, assisting owners to increase dining capacity while ensuring social distancing required by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The municipality has rolled out a series of sidewalk-level platforms at the expense of road space, permitting restaurants and bars to add dozens of outdoors tables and chairs, and welcome significantly more customers.

The move accelerates a key Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality urban policy to prioritize pedestrians and cyclists, and encourage local trade across the city, highlighted by a recent municipal decision to convert 11 streets into pedestrianized commercial zones.

Sidewalk-level platforms were introduced this week along Chayim Vital Street in Tel Aviv’s vibrant (also very stinky from cat pollution) Florentin neighborhood, home to many popular restaurants and bars.

While the street represents an important thoroughfare for vehicular access to surrounding streets and residences, and cannot be entirely pedestrianized, the platforms provide a “breathing” sidewalk that may be extended to support local businesses and encourage greater foot traffic.

In May 2020, Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality announced that it would convert an additional 11 streets into pedestrianized zones, open strictly to pedestrians and cyclists. The decision follows the successful conversion of Tel Aviv’s Levinski Street into a 24/7 pedestrian zone and shut Sheinkin Street to traffic on Fridays during the past year.

In addition, the municipality has placed more than 1,000 outdoor chairs and umbrellas across pedestrian zones to encourage visitors to take advantage of the newly-converted areas.

Last month, as part of large-scale efforts to emphasize pedestrian travel, reduce traffic congestion and air pollution, Tel Aviv said it would double bike paths in the city from 140 km. to 300 km. by 2025. That’s a great plan, but if they are overtaken by rude and vicious and usually inexperienced moped drivers or electric bikes racing to 100km/hour, no thanks.

The implementation of the plan is expected to reduce traffic congestion in the city by 30% says the city but to what personal expense if the bike lanes are not policed.

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Givatayim’s legendary eggplant-maker Oved Daniel, whom they call the “professor of sabich [Iraqi eggplant dish] science,” is opening up a new restaurant in Tel Aviv. Previously a gifted soccer player, today Daniel is a local food celebrity whose specialty sabich is one of Israel’s most beloved foods. Sabich has its roots in Israel’s Iraqi community. It is a traditional Baghdadi breakfast dish, consisting of fried eggplant, Arabic salad, parsley, fresh onion and a baked or boiled egg and emerged as a national sensation in the 1960’s.

In 1961 Tzvi Halabi opened up the first sabich stand in Ramat Gan, the Tel Aviv suburb with a thriving Iraqi-Israeli community. It was Halabi who first added hummus and tahini to sabich, and sold it to Israeli consumers inside a warm pita. Then Oved Daniel opened up his place in the neighboring suburb, which is when sabich grew in popularity.

The workers at “Oved” became local food celebrities among eggplant lovers, famed for their unique slang, derived from soccer metaphors and Hebrew wordplay.

For example, to order a sabich without red or yellow spicy sauces, one says the score is “zero, zero.” These colors correlate with popular Israeli soccer teams. You could also say that Maccabi Tel Aviv wins to order one sauce without the other, a tie to order both sauces.

In a few weeks, Daniel’s  highly anticipated new restaurant will become the first branch aside from the original “Oved” in Givatayim.

::Maariv (In Hebrew)

Read more about Israeli foods:
Eggplants and Peppers: Produce in the Middle East
Book Review: Mama Nazima’s Jewish-Iraqi Cuisine by Rivka Goldman
One-handed Whole Wheat Pita Recipe, the Old Yemini Way

Image of pita bread via Shutterstock. Image of Oved sabich via Leigh Cuen.

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