Colors in restaurants: What does color mean? What is the best color; Black color, Yellow color, Red color, Orange color, blue color, Green color, Brown color, Colors to paint a food business, Colors to paint a hamburger business, Colors for the menu.
Introduction
Have you ever wondered about the role played by color in restaurants? According to color psychology, color is known to evoke certain feelings in people. Some colors evoke happiness while others evoke sadness. Other colors such as red, yellow and orange make people hungry. Restaurants have mastered the art of utilizing color to attract their customers or compel people to eat.
If you plan on running a restaurant, color is one of the most important factors that you need to consider. You need to ensure that the premises are attractive enough to capture the attention of customers. If your restaurant is not attractive, the chances are high that it will not attract customers.
When using color in restaurants, it is important to focus on the outside. This is the part of the restaurant that will determine whether you will get customers or not. When people are looking for a restaurant in a street, they focus on the graphics and color drawn on the outside of the premises.
If the colors used are those that make people hungry, the chances are high that many people would enter the restaurant. If the colors are not attractive enough, the restaurant would find it challenging to attract enough clients.
In such a case, it stands a high chance of failure due to the lack of enough customers. If a business does not have enough customers, it will not make enough profits to sustain its operations such as paying employees and sourcing for food items to cook.
What does color mean?
Color means the property of an object to create various sensations on the eye depending on the light it emits. For instance, if an item is blue, it means that it emits a blue light and this is what creates sensation in an individual’s eye.
Colors produce different sensations in the eyes of individuals. For instance, an orange color might evoke happiness in one person while another person might not like the color. This explains why people have different favorite colors. This does not mean that some colors are bad. It means that the sensations evoked by each color varies from person to person. Hence, what one person finds attractive might not be attractive to another person.
When choosing a color for a restaurant, it is important to consider the fact that people have different perspectives about colors. If such a factor is not put into consideration, you might limit the number of customers willing to eat from your restaurant.
The meaning of color might also differ from one restaurant owner to another. For instance, some owners might consider yellow to be a favorite color that makes people hungry.
Other people might consider a color that makes the pace look classy. In such a case, your restaurant would attract people depending on the color you choose to use. If it is a color that evokes class, you are likely to only attract the people that prefer to eat in classy places.
If you use a color that makes people feel hungry, you are likely to attract the people that were not even planning to eat.
What is the best color?
Are you wondering which is the best color to use in a restaurant? Well, this is a complex question because people have different perceptions about color. For instance, one person might find orange attractive while another person might find it not a suitable color for a restaurant.
Therefore, the best color for a restaurant is the color that you consider to be the best in attracting customers. As mentioned above, choosing a color for your restaurant would require you to consider several things. The main thing is the emotion or feeling that you wish to evoke to your customers.
For instance, you might want your customers to feel hungry, happy or enjoy the feeling of a classy area. You will also have a different target audience and this means you have to consider the needs of your audience.
Some restaurants sell their food at a higher price than others. This means that people who can afford expensive food know the restaurants to visit. Such people also expect the standards of such restaurants to meet their expectations. For instance, the person would like to not the classiness of the restaurant.
If the restaurant is not classy, customers might not be willing to pay more for food that they can get at a cheaper price. Hence if you target the rich, your restaurant ought to look classy. The best way to make a place look classy is through the choice of the right colors.
In another scenario, you might target the less fortunate and are unwilling to pay a lot for a meal. These people are seeking to eat from a place that evokes happiness. Therefore, you need to choose colors that evoke feelings of happiness to paint your restaurant. In turn, you will have less challenges in attracting the right customers.
Black color
Are you looking for a color that will show sophistication? Black is the ideal color for creating such a feeling in a restaurant. Most of the restaurants made to appear classy and host classy people for dinners are mostly painted black.
The owners might choose to combine the black color with other colors but black is always the main color. In most cases, the black color is painted on the walls. One of the main factors that make the black color appear sophisticated is the associated décor.
For instance, the color might look more conspicuous if paired with yellow lights. This means that before you choose black for your restaurant, you need to know how to play around with it to create sophistication. Black is a dull cull and therefore, if too much of it is used for interior décor, the place might look dull and boring.
Black color can also be used on other areas of the restaurant such as furniture and menu to evoke class. Black is considered a color of authority and power. Hence, when used in menus, it would have a classic appeal. However, you need to be careful about how you incorporate the color in your menu.
Black ink on a white paper is always conspicuous and considered the most appealing black menu. When used on furniture, other colors need to be added to make the black color pop out.
If all the furniture is black, it might look dull instead of the sophisticated feeling evoked by the color. Therefore, it is advisable to add in some colors but to ensure that most of the furniture is black. In short, let black be the dominant color.
Yellow color
Yellow is considered one of the colors that make people feel hungry. However, this does not make it an ideal color for all restaurants. We all know that yellow is a bright color and if too much of it is used in a room, it might appear irritating.
Therefore, when used in a restaurant, it makes people leave the premises within the shortest time possible. This explains why yellow is one of the most common colors painted in fast foods. The aim of fast foods is to make people buy their food and if possible, leave immediately.
Such can be achieved by making the place less comfortable for consumers. Making it less comfortable can be best achieved by painting the walls yellow or by ensuring that yellow is the most conspicuous color in the premises.
If you are seeking to create a restaurant for making quick money, then yellow is your ideal color to use. It will motivate people to leave as soon as they have ordered their food, thus creating room for new customers. However, the color alone will not help in profit maximization.
You will need to advertise your restaurant or place it in a strategic place. Such would increase the number of people willing to visit your restaurants. If the restaurant does not attract many customers, it will be of no point to make yellow the most conspicuous color.
Instead, you can use other colors that would make the place cozy and motivate the few customers that you have to come back for meals. This is not the color you need in your restaurants if you are seeking to retain customers.
Red color
Red is one of the most effective colors in the food industry. If you have been keen about noting the colors used by many restaurants, you must have noted that red is among the commonly used colors.
Most restaurants have the color red in their logos. The reason red is a common color for restaurants is because it is a bright color. Conspicuous colors such as red attract attention and this would make it easy for people to know about your restaurants.
Restaurants such as KFC and McDonalds have the color red in their logos. Such color has become their brand and this plays a major role in attracting many customers.
In relation to food, red is known to enhance an individual’s appetite. Therefore, when used as napkins, in the furniture or as the wall paint, it can motivate people to eat more.
This would be an ideal situation for the restaurant because when people eat more, it will make more profits. Red is well-known as a color that increases an individual’s heart beat and heightens the nerve impulses. When such happens in an individual’s body, they are likely to eat more.
If you are considering using red in your restaurant, you should be careful not to overdo it. Red is a very bright color and too much of it in a room can be overwhelming. Black is one of the most common colors that can be combined with red to create a sophisticated look in a restaurant. Red can also be combined with green to create a harmonious environment.
Orange color
According to the color philosophy, orange is one of the colors that makes people feel hungry. This color is mostly used in pictures of food to make the foods appear tasty. If you have been keen about food commercials, you must have noted that orange is the most dominant color in most foods especially the spicy ones.
When people see pictures of food with orange hues, they tend to assume that such food is tasty. The result of such an assumption is that many people would wish to taste the food. If you can make people want to taste your food, the chances are high that your restaurant business would be successful.
The orange color is a very conspicuous color and therefore, ideal for drawing attention to your restaurant. Most restaurants paint its color on the outside of their premises to draw attention.
The color can also be used in the restaurant’s logos to enhance the chances of people noticing it. Imagine being given a black and an orange logo. Which one do you think you will notice first? The orange one of course. Hence, if you are seeking to increase the market share for your restaurant by creating awareness about its existence, an orange logo would be ideal.
Orange offers similar benefits like red because both are bright colors. However, too much orange can be irritating due to how bright the color is. Therefore, it is advisable to minimize its use but ensure that it is the dominant color.
Blue color
Blue is a dull color and is associated with calmness. The best part about the color is that it comes in different shades. Some are brighter than others and therefore, you can easily choose the shade of blue that you wish to incorporate in your restaurants. Regardless of the shade of blue chosen, they all evoke the feeling of calmness.
Blue is an ideal color for people seeking to have a restaurant where people can relax. This is the opposite of a restaurant where you want people to leave soon to create room for new customers. Blue is ideal for using in restaurants which aim at retaining their customers. Once a customer has identified a calm spot where they can enjoy a meal, they are likely to come back for more meals in the future.
Blue is an ideal color to use in seafood because it reflects the pecan. If your restaurant does not deal with seafood, blue might not be an ideal color to use. Most foods are not naturally blue in color. Blue food would also not look appetizing. This limits the areas where the color can be used. The most common places where blue can be used are the walls, furniture and the menu. You can also buy blue wall hangings to make the restaurant look more calm.
Blue is a dull color and therefore, too much of it can appear boring. People want to eat in a restaurant that creates the mood of happiness. As much as calmness in a restaurant is important, too much of it can make the place boring.
In turn, people would not be much interested in coming back for more meals in the future. Hence, it is advisable to combine blue with other bright colors such orange, red and yellow. However, if blue is your theme color, you need to ensure that it is the most conspicuous one in the restaurants. You can achieve such by having the walls painted blue and hanging orange, yellow or red wall hangings.
Green color
Similar to blue, green is a calm color that comes in different shades. The darkest shade of green is jungle green while the brightest shade is neon green. If you plan to use green in your restaurant, you can play along with these shades to choose one that best fits your taste. Green is a dull color that will create a calm mood in the restaurant.
It will also create the sense of nature that is preferred by many people. Another advantage of this color in restaurants is that it resembles the color of most vegetables. Therefore, when printed on menus or on the walls together with orange, it can make people feel hungry. When people feel hungry, they are likely to eat more and this means you will make more profits.
The green color is known to curb appetite and this means that if you have the color in your restaurants, you are not likely to make much profits. Therefore, it is important to minimize the use of this color in your restaurant. If you have to use it, it is advisable to combine with other bright colors that stimulate appetite.
Green has never been an ideal color for restaurants and too much of it might make the premises look weird. If you have to use the green color in your restaurants, you can use food paintings to represent vegetables or use it in a few of your furniture. Among the colors that can go well with green is orange, yellow, and white.
Brown color
Brown is one of the most commonly used colors in restaurants. Similar to black, the brown color is capable of creating the appearance of sophistication. The brown color can be well used on the menus, food pictures and the furniture. When painted on the walls, the color can appear to be too much and this will create a cluttered place rather than creating sophistication.
When used on the menu, brown can be combined with black, yellow and orange to make people feel hungry. Most foods are brown when cooked and this color makes them look tasty. For instance, if you are painting a picture of a grilled chicken or meat pork ribs, it has to appear brown for it to look real and appetizing.
This means that brown is one of the colors that makes people hungry and when used well in the hotel, it can make people want to eat more. When people eat more, it is reflected in the profits. Another way to incorporate brown in a restaurant is by buying brown wall hangings to hang on a wall painted a different color such as white, orange or yellow.
Colors to paint a food business
There are many colors that you can paint for a food business. The choice of color would depend on the food business that you are running. For instance, you could be selling groceries or running a restaurant.
The colors to use in both businesses would vary. For instance, the grocery would require you to use green colors to represent fresh vegetables and some green cereals such as peas. The green color should be used in painting the images of green foodstuffs. Such would motivate people to buy your food items.
If you are running a business, you will have to use colors that make people hungry, colors that create sophistication or colors that evoke calmness.
Therefore, you can choose among orange, red, yellow, blue, brown and black. The choice of color will also depend on your taste. Hence, before you choose a color for your food business, it is advisable to consider various factors such as your target customers and the type of food business you intend to run.
Colors to paint a hamburger business
A hamburger is a food that contains beef fat in a bread bun. It also contains various vegetables. This means that a hamburger will have a light to dark brown bun, a dark brown meat and green vegetables.
If you want your customers to get an initial impression that you are selling hamburgers, you will need a picture of the same included in your menu. The picture can also be painted on the wall to draw attention to the tastiness of a hamburger.
The paintings have to resemble a real hamburger. Therefore, you will need brown, yellow, orange and green colors. These can be painted on a black wall to make them more conspicuous. You can also include brightly colored furniture such as yellow or orange chairs. Such colors would make the pace look colorful and welcoming to an individual seeking to buy a colorful food.
Colors for the menu
The colors for the menu will vary depending on the type of food you are selling. However, you need to ensure that it includes pictures of foods with appetizing colors such as brown, orange and yellow.
These colors compel people to eat more and that means you will make more profits. If you are running a classy restaurant, a menu with black ink on white paper would be ideal in showing the theme of sophistication. If you are selling seafood, a menu with blue colors would be ideal since blue is the color of the ocean.
Conclusion
Now that you have known a few details about certain colors and what they mean when used in restaurants, you will not have many challenges in choosing the ideal color for your restaurant.
Once you know how to choose a color for your restaurant, you will be amazed by the number of customers you will get in your restaurant. Running a restaurant can be very challenging due to the high level of competition in the market.
Therefore, you need to ensure that your restaurant is unique in terms of the environment and the services that it offers to the customers. If a customer can enjoy good quality services in a good environment, the chances of them coming back for more food are high.
The goals of running a restaurant are to make profits. These profits can be made by retaining customers or allowing room for the available new customers.
The best way to achieve either of these is creating an ideal restaurant environment through the right choice of color. You do not want to choose a color that will not attract customers to eat in your restaurant.
Once you choose the right colors to attract customers to your restaurant, you would soon stand at a better position in the competitive edge. You would also find it easy to overcome any new competition in the market.
Read Also: Choosing a color for your restaurant is one of the most challenging things to do. Given that people have different perspectives about color, you will need to identify a color that is most likely to create the ideal environment for your customers.
If customers feel that your restaurant is not welcoming or up to their standards, the chances are minimal that they would want to eat in your restaurant again.
If your restaurant has welcoming colors, the chances are high that people would be willing to come back for more meals. Hence, you need to know the things to consider in creating the right environment.
For instance, you need to consider your target audience and the type of restaurant environment that you wish to create: Color Psychology for Food; OSHA Regulations for Restaurants; Licence VS franchise agreement; black color in advertising, marketing and business; Wikipedia.
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