The document below is a brief literature review on research that has focused on how people react to art and music within a restaurant environment. This gives context to the interaction that art has with restaurant customers and the importance of this relationship. It’s important to also note, my project is more focused on conceptualizing a new kind of restaurant space. Therefore, this literature review also serves as an example of how the research up to this point has been very concerned with the business aspect of this relationship. Instead of searching for ways art and music can increase sales, I’m theorizing a way for the art and restaurant space to work in tandem to benefit each other equally.

Literature Review of Behavioural Research on Art and Music in the Restaurant SpaceDownload
Figure 5

Working Title For a Restaurant: “The Restaurant That Doesn’t Care About Your Afternoon Business Meeting”

Can a restaurant be a truly creative space or is it doomed to be a table-flipping profit machine? This question is difficult to answer from someone outside the industry but it’s perhaps even harder for someone inside the industry. Having worked in restaurants for several years now and currently managing one, I see the motivations behind restaurateurs and they’re not necessarily wholesome ones. These are usually strictly profit-based motivations: how can we get as many people coming into our restaurant as possible on a daily basis and get them coming back? Décor is a massive element of a restaurant interior and it’s often what influences the decision to stay and return to a restaurant space. I love restaurants and I love dining in them, but I envision a space that can be a haven for artists and musicians as well as an attraction to customers for not just great food but also great art. Profit motivation still needs to exist and the business needs to be run to industry standards in order to survive. However, this is an opportunity to make the restaurant space more than just a place to dine and socialize but to also create and house its community’s art in a unique conceptualization.

Crafting a space to be the ultimate combination of art and restaurant is a tricky process. Two specific decisions have to be made: What type of restaurant will it be and how will the art space be integrated into it. For this concept, I think the ideal restaurant-style would be casual with a fine dining level to the food and service. It has to be something in-between in order to garner interest from various social class levels to support such an ambitious space. It shouldn’t have a club/party vibe or else the meaning and significance could be lost. It needs to have a focus on quality or else it will be short-lived. This includes the quality of food and the quality of art. The goal is to have a collaborative space. Instead of artists simply displaying their work side by side in a joint exhibition, it will have them working together to develop the best way to display their art in a conceptual and integrative fashion. Musicians creating music that pairs with visual art and poetry or light displays that react to the music in an abstract presentation. The space would have to rotate through displays just like a gallery every couple months to maintain public interest. It would be a difficult balance, but doable if it’s designed properly.

Figure 1
Figure 2

What Happens When was a restaurant in New York City that inspired to be a sort of ‘pop-up store’ restaurant. The restaurant’s goal was to frequently change its menu, concept, and interior design. Figure 1 and 2 show examples of one of these changes. These images also show how easy and quickly a restaurant can change its entire space by doing something as simple as switching the art that hangs from the ceiling. The reason for the restaurant’s demise was simply over-exertion. Although certainly ambitious, flipping an entire restaurant’s concept and menu on a regular basis is nearly financially impossible. The owners attempted to be more financially secure with their idea by keeping the walls black and the interior shell of the restaurant relatively the same whilst adjusting what hung from the walls and ceiling. The challenge existed in their choice to change every other aspect of the restaurant whenever they changed the interior display. It’s just not feasible. The idea for this project is to keep the spirit of having a revolving art space but to allow the restaurant to exist someone separate so it can survive as a business.

In terms of design, one of the best ways I currently see it functioning is with the art space being in the front of the restaurant. This would force the customer to walk through the space and interact with it before they get to dine. It would be the reverse of Havana restaurant on Commercial Drive in Vancouver. Havana has a theatre and art space in the back (shown in Figures 3 and 4) which is great except that many people will never know it’s there (I didn’t know it was there until years after frequent visits!). The key difficulty will be the art space and restaurant space feeling completely separate from one another. The goal is to create a sort of pairing between the two. However, it is certainly difficult to imagine an intense sensory experience whilst trying to enjoy a meal. The art will have to be subdued in the restaurant area in order to facilitate a comfortable social and culinary experience. The two spaces will have to be separated in some capacity, but the balance will be tricky.             

Figure 3
Figure 4

Figure 5 shows a simple floor-plan I designed for a restaurant of this nature. Its entryway opens into the collaborative art space, which includes a stage in the far corner for various types of potential performances. A wall partially hides the restaurant but leaves a large opening directly opposite of the entrance to make the space feel as though it is continuous. I’ve chosen large communal tables to occupy the middle of the restaurant in order to facilitate a social atmosphere. This will allow for the entire space to have a collaborative and conversational vibe. Having a slight separation between the art space and the restaurant space will facilitate movement between the two rooms and create the coexistence that the business will need to be unique.

A drawing that preceded the design in Figure 5 was the drawing in Figure 6. This drawing depicts a similar concept but has the entranceway to the restaurant in the centre of the dividing wall. It certainly creates more of a divide between the two but would allow the art space to function with less distraction from the restaurant. Of course, this also stretches the concept’s goal of the two spaces working in tandem. I tried to help mitigate this by placing a bar area in the art space that is partially walled off, making it less intrusive but effectively placing the bar/restaurant element directly into the art space.

            There are certainly many directions the space can go in. The main thing I’d like to focus on next is how to present this concept and what an interactive presentation would look like as a grad project. Figure 7 is a quick sketch of how I would envision this project taking shape in this fashion. I would repurpose a room to temporarily exist as this restaurant/art space, dividing the room in two and creating a mock version of the whole concept. The art piece in the centre would be an abstract representation of what I seek to create along with various elements from other restaurants pulled together to detail the concept. I’d like to accompany this with a musical performance of my own compositions that will make the space come alive. The ultimate goal will be to present a unique idea for a restaurant/art space in the most authentic way possible. Viewers will be in a small version of what I hope to be the real thing one day.

Figure 6
Figure 7

Works Cited

“Havana Theatre 2.” Fabulously Frugal in Vancouver, Fabulously Innovative Marketing, Vancouver, 28 Jan. 2020, http://fabulouslyfrugalinvancouver.com/havana-theatre-dinner-and-a-show-package/.

“Movement 2/Space.” The Metrics, Metric Design Group, New York City, http://www.metricsdesigngroup.com/work/whathappenswhen/whathappenswhen.html.

Taste the summer vibes at Van’s coolest Cuban spot, Curiocity Group Inc, Vancouver, 29 Apr. 2019, https://curiocity.com/vancouver/food-drink/taste-the-summer-vibes-at-vans-coolest-cuban-spot/.

“VALENTINES DAY INSTALLATION.” The Metrics, Metric Design Group, New York City, http://www.metricsdesigngroup.com/work/whathappenswhen/whathappenswhen.html.