Building a restaurant in Dallas Fort Worth is a big investment and the stakes are high. If you take the right steps at the start, you’ll open on time, with a space that works exactly as you envisioned. Make the wrong decisions and you spend months and thousands of dollars correcting mistakes that a more experienced team would have never made. This guide provides you with all the information you need to know about restaurant design in North Texas, so you can move forward with confidence.

Understanding the Design Build Model

The design build model is a completely different approach to hiring architects, designers and contractors separately. In the traditional model, you are the hub of coordination amongst a number of vendors who do not naturally share information, timelines or accountability. When things go wrong, it’s a blame game all around, nothing gets fixed quickly.

One firm provides architecture and design through construction under one contract in the design build model. That single point of accountability completely changes the dynamic of the project. The problems are created by the same team that fixes them, so they get solved faster, and they are usually avoided altogether because design intent is never lost in translation between vendor handoffs.

What's in the Restaurant Headquarters Design Build Process

What’s included in a full project with Restaurant Headquarters? Everything from signing the lease to opening nite:

Design Phase Full floor plans, elevations and permit ready drawings for the entire space, front of house and back of house designed together so nothing is designed in isolation.

Custom millwork, stainless steel fabrication and waterjet cut decorative elements fabricated in the Garland facility with no subcontractor involvement. All stainless work is constructed from 16 gage 304 stainless with TIG welded seams and NSF oriented construction on food contact surfaces.

Construction Phase The same team that designed and fabricated your space will construct it. Licensed, Bonded and Insured Construction Management From Groundbreak to Final Inspection

Equipment Phase Because Restaurant Headquarters also runs a full commercial equipment supply store, the equipment schedule is incorporated directly into the project. The project team sources, delivers and installs everything.

The Financial Business Case for Integrated Design Build

Cost control is one of the biggest concerns for any restaurant owner undertaking a build or renovation. The integrated design build approach, from architecture to construction to permitting and custom fabrication, in one Dallas area facility, allows clients to save as much as 28 percent on costs and reduce project timelines by 20 to 35 percent over the traditional approach.

When you are working with a tight opening budget those numbers are very important. A restaurant that is not finished every week is a week without revenue restaurant design Dallas. Each change order from a fabricator given incomplete drawings is a dollar spent addressing an issue that should have never existed. An integrated team removes both of those cost drivers.”

RHQ’s Hands-On Restaurant Design Dallas: Brands Built

Restaurant Headquarters has a portfolio of more than 1,000 restaurant projects completed in North Texas. Some of the notable completed builds are:

• Shipley Do-Nuts — A franchise fit out that was completed in approximately six weeks by concurrently fabricating in house while prepping the site

• Sweet Hut – Complete store renovation including exterior redesign and interior build out

• Asian Mint — Full restaurant design and construction that reflects the brand’s modern Asian look and feel

• Zumi Modern Sushi — Full dining room build with custom sushi bar, waterjet cut panels and layered lighting design

Each of these projects is a different concept, a different size and different design challenges and all of them solved by the same in house team.

Interior Design Principles That Work Across All Concepts

Regardless of what your idea is, there are some principles of interior design that are universal in the restaurant industry:

• Traffic flow – Guests and staff should not be competing for the same paths through the dining room

• Acoustic management — Even the best food can’t save a noisy dining room from scaring away guests

• Lighting layers – Ambient, accent and task lighting should all work together to create the right mood

• Sight lines – Guests should not feel exposed or uncomfortable, and servers should always have an unobstructed view of their tables.

• Brand consistency – All visual elements should reinforce who you are as a restaurant

At Restaurant Headquarters, the principles are integrated into every design from the first floor plan.

One Garland Facility Serving North Texas

Restaurant Headquarters is located in Garland, Texas and serves all of the DFW metroplex including Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano, Addison, Southlake, Frisco, McKinney, Irving, Richardson, Allen and Denton. The fabrication shop and supply warehouse are co located in Garland which means fabricated pieces can move from the shop to your construction site with essentially no delay.

Abstract

When you have the right partner, the restaurant design and build process in Dallas Fort Worth does not have to be overwhelming. For 30 years, Restaurant Headquarters has offered expertise, a fully equipped in house fabrication facility and a team that has delivered more than 1,000 North Texas restaurants. One team. Your first talk to your first guest. So you can do what you do best.