Lighting Options by Space or Area

Restaurants, Lounges & Bars

Lighting enhances the guest experience. Creating the right ambiance for different needs is the lighting design goal of any in-house drinking and dining space whether it’s a cafe, martini bar, sports bar, or restaurant. These are places where people meet, socialize and simply enjoy the experience. Today’s many choices of luminaires and light sources allow you to create different lighting moods in the same space, from professional and refreshing during the day, to exciting and dynamic after dark.

Design Tips
Lighting in dining establishments should be suited to the goals of the space:

  • Intimate restaurants, lounges and clubs require low levels of illuminance with subtly lighted focal areas such as entrance lobbies, maitre d’ stations and table and bar surfaces. Lighting should be uniform and controlled in distribution.
  • Leisure restaurants and dining rooms (the most prevalent type) require moderate illuminance levels and luminaires are usually unobtrusive, except where decorative luminaires might be used as part of the interior theme décor. Light levels should be higher in focal areas such as buffet tables.
  • Quick service restaurants including snack bars, coffee shops and franchise restaurants usually strive for fast and efficient customer turnover. Higher illuminance levels and uniform light distribution are usually the norm.
  • In any dining or drinking establishment, there should be adequate light levels for reading menus or reading labels on bottles behind the bar.
  • Light sources with a high color rendering index are important wherever food is being served so that everything looks appetizing.
  • Where windows are present in restaurants, a daylight harvesting system can be used to save energy and extend lamp life.

In lounges, clubs and discos, SYLVANIA LED light sources and luminaires can be incorporated into just about any architectural surface, feature or texture to create exciting and dynamic color combinations and scenes. SYLVANIA digital controls give you total control over your LED systems to create both functional white light as well as warm and intimate color moods.