Lighting rules for restaurants and cafes (1)

In this article, we will touch on a very important and very difficult issue - how to properly organize lighting in a restaurant or cafe. Why is this question so important? Because a successful restaurant offers not only and not so much food as atmosphere and comfort. And here all its components are important, not least among which is a competent lighting concept.

Everyone knows how much light affects a person: it relaxes or vice versa excites, attracts or distracts his attention, emphasizes details, sets a certain mood. The most reasonable thing is to make lighting in your public space one of the tools for effectively influencing visitors, setting the atmosphere you need, emphasizing the features of the interior and correctly shading the most important thing - the appearance of the dishes served. Light not only affects visual perception, but it can also change our sense of taste, color and smell. Therefore, the lighting concept for a cafe and restaurant is one of the key points that should be given careful attention.

What requirements should the lighting of a restaurant or a cafe meet?

Of course, lighting is necessary to create optimal visibility in the room. But we must not forget about an equally important aim: to match the style of the interior. And it's very easy to overdo it. Lighting solutions for restaurants are based on the principles of creating an atmosphere of comfort, coziness and safety. And this means that lighting should not draw attention to itself: be more “in the shadows” than “in plain sight”. This can be achieved by using light as an accent: to draw the attention of visitors to the right areas and emphasize the design features of the room. This implies the next aim of lighting - to designate different zones in a single space of a restaurant or a cafe.

Light is the most powerful means of attracting the visitor's attention to a particular object or area. Given the fact that every person subconsciously strives for light, it is even possible to control the movement of visitors around the hall.

Due to the large number of aims, restaurant lighting should be thought out on at least three levels, competently balanced with each other:

• General or background (it usually remains muted);
• Functional or working;
• Accent.

How to determine the required level of lighting

It is worth starting with the fact that there are lighting standards for all types of premises. However, as mentioned above, the level of light should be determined strictly individually, taking into account the design and color scheme of the room, the characteristics of the room. It is worth noting that only a specialist can do this. If you need a schematic or approximate calculation, then you can use special programs. Also, in order to make a general assessment of the adequacy of lighting in a particular room, you can use the following simplified scheme (calculations are made in watts):

• If the height of the room does not exceed 3 meters, then 15 watts will be required for each square meter with a light interior, and 20 watts with a dark one. That is, a lamp with a power of 50 watts is able to illuminate 3.3 square meters of a bright room.

• Of course, this calculation scheme does not give an accurate picture and does not take into account a number of factors: light accents, its unevenness, different levels of illumination, physical features of light. Nevertheless, this scheme will help you quickly understand whether this or that number of fixtures is enough.

• And one more detail: when calculating the illumination according to this scheme, do not forget to take into account the type of fixtures. For example, a lamp with an opaque shade cannot physically illuminate 3 m², because the flow of light emanating from it is strictly limited.