Industry Special: Mats for Restaurants

Any restaurant business thrives on the satisfaction of certain non-negotiable requirements. Great food, beautiful ambience, courteous and prompt service, and uncompromising hygiene. If a restaurant continues to tick these boxes year after year, they will continue doing good business. As with many other service industry businesses, a great experience will generate good word-of-mouth recommendations that will take the business places.

Every restaurant tries to ensure that they hire and retain great chefs and keep improving their menu offerings. Likewise, hiring experienced staff and proper training of staff will help them know how to make a customer feel well taken care of. Most of the times, ambiance and décor are handed over to professional decorators, and they do a great job of making the restaurateur’s vision a spacial reality. Hygiene and maintenance of the place, however, are still things that a restaurant has to handle on a daily basis. Any lapses in these would earn the place a reputation for sloppiness and lack of hygiene.

In addition, a restaurant also has to ensure that safety standards are adhered to at all points—for customers as well as for staff.

How do mats fit into this picture? In this post, we will show you how mats contribute to maintaining safety and hygiene at restaurants and also participate in creating a professional, upscale ambiance.

Entrance

In the restaurant business, first impressions go a long way. Based on the entryway, customers will form an opinion about the kind of place it is and the kind dining experience they are in for. No surprises then that restaurants invest so much in a beautiful entryway and reception area. A great way to create a good first impression even before customers enter the restaurant premises is to invest in good entrance mats.

An outdoor entrance mat that leads up to the restaurant entrance not only brushes off dirt from shoe soles and keeps the insides clean but also helps create an upscale, professional look. A good entrance mat should be able to scrape dirt off, hide it away from plain sight, and hold it until the mat gets cleaned.

An indoor entrance mat is just an additional layer of cleaning to help ensure that the insides remain as clean as possible. The mats can be made from nylon, rubber, vinyl, coir, or polypropylene. These synthetic material indoor/outdoor entrance mats work great at creating a crisp professional entryway.

Custom logo mats are another great way to bring a professional look to the entryway with the added advantage of marketing your brand and building recall. You can get your restaurant name and logo printed or inlaid for a very sophisticated and luxurious look. You can also customize the size and fitting of the mats for a flawless and plush look.

Reception Area

The reception area is where diners and guests gather briefly before they are seated at their tables. A part of the entryway, reception areas can further cement a customer’s opinion about the place. The use of luxurious statement rugs and carpets have been a top choice to help create a luxurious, warm, and welcoming look. Their only drawback is that they are delicate and a tad costlier to maintain.

"persian patric-johansson-227" by Sterin is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

If you are looking for something elegant yet rugged, then carpet tiles from Cocomatsnmore are a good idea. The peel and stick tiles can be easily deployed by you and are easy to use, though getting things done from experts will ensure the job is done professionally and efficiently. 

Do not forget to invest in good quality anti-fatigue mats for your reception area staff. Their job involves long hours of standing during business hours to greet customers as well as check reservations.

A good anti-fatigue mat will make their job easier as their feet will be less strained, and their discomfort will be vastly reduced.

Seating Area

This is every restaurant’s star area. This is where customers spend over 90% of their visit to the place. Here is where they catch up, converse, relax, celebrate, and dine. It should appeal to them, welcome them, put them at ease, and be comfortable to be in. Since so much happens here, the flooring should be non-fussy and sturdy. Tiles and stone flooring are the best choices for seating areas because of their durability and sturdiness.

Tiled Flooring

Since no dining is complete without some amount of food and liquid spills, these flooring options are ideal as they are very easy to clean and maintain. 

Laminate and vinyl flooring are emerging trends, and you get a good choice of designs in both these types of flooring. They cost a lot less, are easy to install, easy to clean, are a great substitute for wood and, therefore, eco-friendly.

Laminate Flooring

Vinyl Flooring

Unlike tiles and stone flooring, they can be changed as you change your restaurant decor without costing you an arm and a leg. 

Kitchen

This is the place where all the culinary action happens. It is the place where genius is exhibited and Michelin Star deserving dishes are whipped up. The kitchen is the messiest place in a restaurant and yet one where hygiene and safety matter the most. Drain Through Mats, with their drainage holes allow food, curry, soup, grease, and liquid spills and drips to drain down off the surface where they will not make staff slip. The materials used are tough and can withstand heat and rough treatment.

Their light anti-fatigue property means that chefs and food prep area staff do not feel the full brunt of long hours spent standing. This is an advantage because fatigued staff members are stressed, distracted, and unable to perform as well as they would like to. Hence these mats are a very good investment for your kitchen's hygiene as well as the well being of your staff.

Deep freezers have a wet and icy environment and, hence, are also rife with the danger of slips and falls. It is extremely important to install mats here that have excellent traction that greatly reduces slipping, skidding, and injuries. Check out Deep Freeze Mats by Canadamats; they provide just the right traction.

Washrooms

Bathrooms and washrooms are teaming with germs and, by virtue of being wet areas, always present higher risks of slips and falls. Using absorbent mats that have a stronger grip are essential and of utmost importance. Synthetic mats are great at absorbing and holding water in their surface material. They also have a firm grip and do not shift around easily. They come in a wide range of colors and designs and are a great way to ensure the safety of guests.

Inside bathrooms, it is a good practice to lay out Urinal mats. They are the easiest way to reduce germs from travelling on shoe soles into seating areas, where people eat and where there could be children playing on the floors.

Have queries? Feel free to get in touch with us. Our number is 866-362-2053 and our email address is sales@matsupplier.com