Washrooms in the restaurant setting break away from the conventional commercial mould. It’s in this environment that businesses can be bold, embrace strong design aesthetics and explore unique usability innovations. But that doesn’t mean that you need to be compromising on things like durability or easy clean functionality. Thanks to the growth in contemporary design in the commercial sector, it’s now easier than ever to deliver creative, functional, and easy to clean washrooms in this space.
Energy and water efficiency
In this day and age corporate and social responsibility (CSR) needs to be taken seriously and efforts to reduce your business’ footprint go a long way. You might choose to incorporate a toilet cistern with a low volume, so they use less water when flushed, or maybe you’ll consider waterless urinals, which don’t require a mains water feed. Additionally, we see most restaurants opting for low energy lighting, which consists of LED lights that are controlled by an infra-red sensor. This means the lights are only switched on when a user enters the room.
Improving hygiene AND usability in one fell swoop
Sensor taps have many great benefits. Most importantly, they help to improve the hygiene throughout your washroom. Because users never need to physically touch the tap, the spread of bacteria is reduced significantly. When partnered with sensor activated flushes on the urinals and toilets, along with sensor hand dryers and dispensers, the number of touch points in your washroom is diminished and the hygiene performance soars. You will also find in this process that your washroom becomes easier to clean. The second major benefit is improved usability, making the washroom experience simpler and more pleasant.
Easy clean functionality
Still widely considered a measure of a good restaurant, consumers often judge a restaurant by its washrooms. The saying goes along the lines, that if the bathroom is clean and in good order, then you can expect the kitchen to be in a similar shape. For this reason alone, many big name restaurant chains invest heavily in delivering washrooms that have easy cleaning built into their design, and routinely refurbish washrooms on a rolling cycle. To begin with, you might think about vanity units to conceal all the pipework and waste to the sinks, reducing the exposed surface area and leaving cleaners with a flush, flat fronted unit that’s simple to sanitise. Similarly, IPS DUCT sets do a similar job behind the toilets, hiding all the cisterns and services within a small void between the wall and panels.
The flow of high traffic washrooms
In busy restaurants you may have many users in the washroom at one time. In order to deliver maximum efficiency, this may cause you to reconfigure your washrooms. For instance, you may choose to create a unisex hand wash area which sits before segregated toilet rooms. On the other hand, you may simply choose to look at creating thoroughfares so that users washing hands, are not blocking access to urinals, or vice versa.
Opening up the hand wash area
One item that has done particularly well in the hospitality sector is the wash trough. This is a large format multi use wash basin that can take a number of users at the same time. This communal hand wash unit is being employed by a great number of restaurants of all sizes as it not only delivers a more open design aesthetic but with only one waste outlet, it simplifies maintenance too.
If you would like further advice on restaurant and hospitality washrooms, or to discuss our specification and design services, please get in touch today on 01202 650901
