Room Setup

Here, we can delve a little deeper into some of the things I touched on in the "Seating Chart Development" page. 

Space to Move

When I think of this, I think of those renovations shows (I watch way too many) where they renovate restaurants...and a lot of the time, people scoot out the chairs and make sure that there is room to walk in between if people are sitting back to back, both chairs are pulled out, and someone wants to walk down the aisle. In the show's case, it is usually a server; in the case of hosting, it could be quite a variety - from making sure that the host can easily go to the kitchen, or that guests can make sure to get in and out of their seats easily. 

Flow

I touched on this a little bit in other pages (for example, the water cravats) but the flow of a space can also be very important. As a host, you'll want to think about making sure things are accessible that may be most used or making bottlenecks as avoided as possible. If you know that one area is going to be crowded, like the drinks station, can you draw guests to another area by making another station, like an appetizers table to break up the room a little more? If you have a larger space, how do you fill it so that it doesn't appear too empty? If you have a small space, how do you maximize it so that everyone isn't all in one place?

Table Configuration

While this is a crossover, because it definitely affects the seating chart as well, I think it belongs mostly here in "Room Set-up." This is because it brings together the seating chart, the space to move, and the flow. We have definitely played with multiple ways tables have sat in the rooms...and one of our biggest takeaways has been removing unnecessary furniture. We originally wanted to keep couches for seating areas but, to the points above, it made it incredibly difficult to navigate the space so we have ended up putting couches in other rooms (even our bedroom sometimes). We have also played with having one or two tables - depending on how many guests and seats we need to have as well as what the space can allow. One long king's table can be more impressive in a lot of ways, but there is a case to be made for smaller tables, as it allows for the whole, smaller table to be involved in one conversation and can make a seating chart easier as there are more natural divisions.