Using Feng Shui Colors in Your Restaurant

In the previous post, Feng Shui for restaurants, I wrote about several things that you can do to improve your restaurant’s atmosphere and appeal. This time I want to focus on colors.

Colors are especially meaningful even when it comes to food. People assign meaning to colors through cultural experiences. Colors also have energies that express different emotions and evoke different feelings in people.

When looking to use feng shui to find new colors for your restaurant, take time to understand what type of cuisine works well with certain types of colors. You should use warm colors for the interior of your restaurant and menu and a yellow-based lighting instead of a blue-based lighting. Yellow and warm colors bring more light and positive energy to your dining area. These colors also encourage appetite.

The colors for your restaurant should match the type of dining experience you’re offering. If it’s a family-style restaurant, have colors that attract not only the parents, but the kids as well. Restaurants with lots of tie and suit clientele should focus on sleek colors that reflect functionality and formality. Romantic restaurants should use lots of warm colors with heightened emphasis on reds, pinks, and whites.

Red not only brings about feelings of love and romance, but red, like yellow, also increases appetite. Cool colors like deep purples, blues, and greens are more calm and subdued. Blue usually represents clarity, relaxation, and renewal. Purples inspire feelings of nobility, abundance, and dignity. Green is a bit more energetic and lively and represents health and knowledge. Orange is active and cheerful. Yellow is bright and should be used in light shades otherwise it may be overwhelming. Black also doesn’t mean death or depression when used in certain areas of a restaurant. It usually evokes a feeling of class, sophistication, modernity, power, elegance, style, and sleek design. White means clarity, innocence, purity, cleanliness, expansiveness, and hope. Grey means calm and quiet. Brown means grounded, reliable, sturdy, comfortable, and inexpensive. Silver and gold should also be used to accent your other colors.

You should also consider seasonal colors and dishes. Using colors to make your dishes more presentable and aesthetically pleasing will help your restaurant become a personal dining favorite. Foods that are “white” like lean meats and pasta should be complemented by small bits of color like a bright green sprig of parsley and brown grill marks on the meat.

Colors help not only plate presentation, but the overall look and feel of your restaurant. Using blue on the walls just because you serve seafood is going to throw off the feng shui of the restaurant. If you’re having trouble, you can find help from an interior designer who can offer a consultation. You can also receive color palettes from a hardware store to bring back to the restaurant and try out. If you’re still running out of ideas, you can try going to a restaurant that serves a similar cuisine to see how their restaurant furniture, patterns, platter colors, and wall paints all converge to create a positive dining energy.

If you have your own tips and advice and you would like to share them with others I would love to read them in the comments.