# BAR

The bar, like the dining room should be designed to attract a particular clientele rather than to attempt to be all things to all men.  Since liqour is more profitable than food, the designer can help the restaurant by encouraging the clientele to use the bar as a lounge while waiting for a table.

Obviously, such a system will not work everywhere and besides, there are such enormous differences in the liquor laws that these often centrol the arrangements.  When the law permits a cocktail lounge, as opposed to the old-fashioned bar, it can be used as a waiting room for the dining room and can bring in a bundle of extra money.  Many people don‘t approve of drinking and many others, who don‘t disapprove, neverthless could not conceive of meeting anyone in cocktail lounge or bar.  A good way to design a room to get away  with this problem is to divide it into parts by means of movable screens.  Those who preferred could then wait in the lounge itself while those who did not, could wait outside.  Then, if the cocktail lounge itself became crowded, one or both of the screens could be removed and small cocktail tables could be set up as desired in the waiting room to handle the overflow.

Exactly how the bar is related to the waiting room or the dining room, or how the dining rooms are related to one another will depend on the shape of space available.  It is peculiar, but true, that when a restaurant develops a steady clientele – and that is exactly what a restaurant tries to do – many customers like to feel that they are ‗insiders‘.  This means that they all insist on eating in a particular area or room.  Why this comes about is hard to say but it is certain that the designer,realizing that this happens, can work to avoid it.  This may be accomplished in case of an establishment with more than one dining room, each room must be provided with some compelling theme so that no matter which room the customer eats....

Since basement, half basement or second floor space is usually cheaper than ground floor, there is no reason why the restaurant can not operate on more than one level.  The simplest and the most usual way is to put the bar in the first level above or below the ground and the dining room on the ground floor, because it is difficult to carry heavily,  laden trays up and down stairs.  This may sound difficult but a good designer would enjoy finding ways to make the bar so enticing and interesting that the people would seek it out.

Another solution is to take advantage of a first class conveyor system and to design various floors, with pantries, to be served from a single kitchen.