Introduction

Introduction
Restaurants
The restaurant has been around for a long time; since the Greeks and the Romans. It varies from place to place. In general, a restaurant is a place where people pay money for their meal and atmosphere. Designers and architects continue working to improve restaurants in quality and uniqueness. In the past, when the cities and towns were created, populations grew, and bakeries were developed. This caused street trade to flourish because of incoming people from nearby towns and cities passing through. This was the start of the concept of eating out of the house. Also, when the Christians started to spread and traveling became easier, pilgrims started going different places to worship. Because it took time for people to reach their destinations, people stood in the road and sold food to hungry travelers. There were also rest areas for the people and their animals to rest and replenish with water. Then after that, they started bakeries and sold bread. This is how the idea of restaurants started and became more handy and more used by the people. Then people made it open to not just travelers, but to anyone who wished to dine outside of their home. The restaurant started improving and expanding more than anyone could imagine. The immigrants in the open world help and improve the way the restaurants become in the atmosphere, the variety of food, and culture. In the United States, you can try any type of food from anywhere in the world because of the variety in restaurants that exist. That makes it challenging for the designers and architects to incorporate the original cultural traits to reflect the type of food being sold in restaurants. Also, restaurants started to divide into categories such as fine dining, casual, fast food, bars, etc. This was another challenge for the designers and architects to define the type of restaurant. Nick Faulkes, a journalist, wrote in ES Magazine (March 3, 2000), “Over the past ten years, the concept of a restaurant visit as a special event has evaporated or at least mutated. It is no longer a matter of lunch or dinner, it is a lifestyle choice.” His point is very true, because eating in restaurants now is not just for eating purposes, but it’s a choice to enjoy a certain atmosphere. This gives designers, architects, and investors a wide range of choices to base their restaurant designs off of.