I chose to study the organization of space at Kiku Tempura House, a local Japanese restaurant.1 Being a restaurant, a public place where people are expected to stay for a short time, brief observations could be conducted without significantly interfering with the place's normal activity. From frequent visits, I noticed that the the small space seems carefully organized to affect customers' interactions in various ways, most prominently promoting the fast movement of customers through the ordering and eating process without significantly compromising comfort and satisfaction with service.
This diagram outlines the interior of Kiku, which mainly consists
of a large dining room with a cashier counter in the back. As a
customer enters the restaurant, attention is drawn to a large, backlit
photograph menu board on the right wall. This wall and a long dining
counter section define a corridor to the right end of the cashier
counter at the back of the room, which ensures that the customer sees
the menu before reaching the register. The absence of seating or a
waiting area indicates that this restaurant does not provide table
service. Customers are unlikely to spend too much time standing while
making a decision and most proceed to ordering in under a minute.The narrow corridor in front of the cashier counter implies that customers should line up parallel to it. Two spatial cues suggest that the front of the line is on the left. First, the menu corridor naturally feeds into the cashier counter corridor. Second, the cash register is placed at the far left end of the cashier counter, and since payment is the customary conclusion to ordering at restaurants without table service, placement at the end of the back counter mirrors the process.
A refrigerated display case at the register holds soda, juices, and other bottled drinks. Its placement makes it visible to the customer just as the order is made, making it convenient to add a drink to the order. Within a couple minutes of entering, the customer places an order, is issued a number, and finds a seat in the dining area. When the meal is ready, the number is called, and the customer picks it up next to the register on a tray. Leaving the ordering area, the customer must pass a utensil and water station. The space is organized such that the sequence of the main features of the space (menu, register, drinks, utensils) which the customer encounters mirrors the sequence of steps in the typical ordering process.
Rather than organize seating in a set of smaller tables, seating two or four, seating customers next to each other, counter style, allows more customers to fit in the area. It also offers advantages in flexibility and manageability, in that seating groups of various sizes does not require moving tables together. These advantages come at a cost, of course, in that a room of smaller tables would afford couples and small groups more privacy and facilitate face-to-face conversation in groups larger than two. With three or more people sitting counter style, conversation with people other than those seated on either side is more difficult.
Based on informal observations, I suspect that the counter and seating layout influences where certain kinds of parties (e.g. unaccompanied customers, couples, larger groups) sit and even whether they choose to eat at Kiku. Most of Kiku's customers come in ones or twos, rather than larger groups. This might be because seating for one or two people is plentiful and varied, either at the center table, e.g. if a couple prefers to sit face-to-face, or along the outer counters, where having a window or wall in front might offer a greater sense of privacy. On more than one occasion, I have noticed a special subgroup of customers, regulars who have established friendships with the restaurant staff, choose counter seating at the back, facing the cashier counter, where they can converse with the staff during slower moments.
In contrast, a larger group would have to sit at the middle table if it wanted a seating arrangement such that each person could directly face and speak to every other. With only one place that could seat such a group, the chances of space being available are slim during popular hours at such a busy establishment.