Restaurant Decorations: Getting it Right

Custom Restaurant Decor

What is it about a favorite restaurant that brings us back again and again? In addition to food and staff, often it’s the ambiance of the place, one which makes us comfortable settling in for a good meal. Whether a cozy, warm-as-mother’s kitchen, redolent with rich, memorable smells or those eateries designed around specific themes, often it’s the restaurant decorations and details which generate the experience of not only entertaining new tastes and smells but of sights and, sometimes, sounds.

In more recent times, restaurant decorating ideas have created a whole new realm of dining experiences; themes that are as varied as the combinations of foods and drinks served.

During development stages of a new restaurant, decor, concept and style is a wise consideration while planning out the restaurant’s decorating scheme. Often this is not the case when a venue is taken over by a new owner with his/her idea of changing things. It’s important that while the main infrastructure of a building may not be possible to gut and remodel, the interior needs to be coherent with the new concept of the restaurant itself. In other words, if one purchases a steak house with plans to serve Thai food, the steer horns adorning the walls have got to go!

Custom Placemats as Restaurant Decorations

A new client of ours, Hotel Casa del Mar, (Samara Beach, Costa Rica), requested a custom beach-like design for hand-painted place mats to add to their restaurant tables (photo above). Colorful fish decorate the walls of the casual, open-aired facility generating a fun and tropical ambiance. In keeping with their theme, we created a simple blue wave washing up on shore with a sprinkling of seashells and used their logo as well. The sturdy, cotton canvas place mats doubles as a restaurant decoration adding more color and life to the simple décor. 

At the moment we are creating hand painted canvas place mats for Hotel Tamarindo Diria, at the popular Tamarindo beach. This fine hotel boasts several restaurants each with a different theme. The largest seats 120 people and although it looks out onto the ocean the restaurant is somewhat dark, which lends to a cooler environment. We are creating place mats with a very bright color, papaya, a delicious tropical fruit with a rich orange color.

These place mats will blend with the restaurant decorations and also work with the upholstery of the chairs and brighten up the dark wood tables; the color goes well with the tropical flair of the food!

Place mats are an integral and functional part of restaurant decorations. We offer simple one color mats to match a specific detail or intricate designs that reflect the decor. “Man does not live on bread alone,” is a very apt saying when it comes to restaurant decor. We want to feel the ambiance, the homey feeling of a checkered table cloth, the elegance of chandeliers, the modernity of neon lights and even those steer horns hung on the wall of a hearty steak house.

We are excited to be participating in the restaurant industry – for both larger venues and smaller boutique restaurants here in Costa Rica and throughout the world (this girl dreams big)! with our custom designed place mats. It is yet another expression of art and utility that gives us the challenge and love of what we do here at Laurels Originals.