Tagged Articles

design trends

  • Readers Name Top Restroom Design Trends Right Now

    Automation is the top trend in restaurant restroom design, according to 61% of rd+d readers surveyed in August. That means fewer touchpoints and automating everything — from auto-flush toilets to sinks and hand dryers.

  • What’s Behind All the Nostalgia in Restaurants?

    Nostalgia has been a big driver in restaurant visits recently and it is influencing decisions that impact everything from menus to design. 

  • Readers Name Top Restaurant Design Trends of 2025

    In a pulse survey fielded in October, restaurant development + design magazine readers were split on what they think will be the top restaurant design trend of 2025.

  • What’s One Restaurant Design Trend that Needs to Go Away?

    One key theme emerged when readers were asked which restaurant design trend they’d like to see go away.

  • Top Aesthetic Trend of 2024: White, Bright, Clean and Transparent

    While no one aesthetic dominates restaurant spaces, several design concepts continue to move the needle on the projects.

  • The Hole Truth: Shipley Do-Nuts

    Shipley Do-Nuts has been selling doughnuts to Americans since 1936.

  • The Hole Truth: Duck Donuts

    In early spring 2023, Duck Donuts revealed a new shop of the future design prototype, intended to enhance the guest experience, better handle digital and catering orders, and reduce build-out costs for franchisees.

  • Survey Says: Biophilia Top Restaurant Design Trend Post-Pandemic

    Biophilic design — bringing the natural world inside — topped the list of aesthetic trends moving the needle on pitches and current projects.

  • How the Pandemic Changed Restaurant Design

    Are designers thinking about pandemic concerns and trends when designing restaurants today?

  • Get Granular: Specifying Restaurant Tables

    When plotting the floor plan, designers consider the flow of traffic through the space, fire code compliance and table placement. Depending on the level of service, tables are placed to allow for a sense of intimacy while always maximizing seats. Traditionally, corner spaces are perfect for larger tables and booths.

  • Bring Nature In With Biophilic Design

    Bringing the outdoors in for desk- and tech-tethered consumers, designers are embracing biophilic design for its enduring aesthetic appeal and, increasingly, for its well-documented benefits to the human psyche.

  • Reader’s Choices: James Staicoff

    James Staicoff, IIDA, director of hospitality for Oculus Inc., began his interior design career nearly 40 years ago in St. Louis before relocating to Portland, Ore., in 1992.

  • Trends, Tech & Benchmarking: rd+d's Reader Survey

    In this first-ever reader survey, rd+d asked subscribers to name the biggest trends and challenges in restaurant development and design in 2019. The survey included a mix of multiple choice and open-ended questions that gave readers the ability to weigh in and dictate the big ideas and top-line challenges they face in their work.

  • Trend: Art in Restaurants

    Artwork in restaurants is often an afterthought, added to finish off the space or provide a local flair, but for some restaurants, art is part of the central vision for the space, included in plans from the beginning and as integral to the ambience as the food and furniture.

  • Trend: Walk Up Windows

    What’s one way to give traditional brick-and-mortar restaurants a shot of food-truck cool? Follow the lead of a growing number of operators adding walk-up windows. Sure, they’ve been around forever in some segments — think custard and hot dog stands — but in an industry in which everything old is eventually new again, walk-up windows are emerging as a hot and hip restaurant accessory.

  • Trend: Meat, Up Front

    Three restaurants put their dry-aging rooms on display. 

  • Blurring the Lines between the Inside and Outside in Restaurant Design

    The inside and the outside merge at Glass and Vine in Miami, Fla.which was the specific intent of designer Vincent Celano. The owner of Celano Design Studio in New York City, Celano says this allows the restaurant’s owners to maximize the square footage of the restaurant but also offer a lifestyle concept where energy flows seamlessly from the outside to the inside and back again.

  • Color: What's Cool Now

    Is the era of authenticity in design finally coming to an end? Will distressed woods, rough metals and muted colors — which served to amplify a collective need for the genuine in a "new normal" — begin to disappear from restaurant design?

  • The Big Three's New Designs Take in Fast Food

    McDonald's, Wendy's and Burger King are pushing new designs and breaking new ground.  
Advertisement
Advertisement