Restaurant Bar Lighting
Restaurant bar lighting requires focusing on a number of essential elements that come together to create an effective, appropriate sensibility for this special place within your business. Fixtures used in restaurant bar lighting need to be energy efficient and avoid filling the room with too much light. Also, a number of interior design concerns must also be considered when lighting your restaurant bar. What shape is the bar itself? What is the total square footage of the bar area? What type of clientele does the bar attract, and at what time of day?Answering these questions first will help you determine an effective strategy for creating a truly sophisticated, unique restaurant bar lighting system that is easy to control and customize to different seasons, occasions, and groups of people. Working with a licensed, professional lighting design and electrical service firm such as ILD also helps you achieve the very best results. Firms such as ours have access not only to the full gamut of traditional lighting fixtures and high-end lighting controls, but also to specialty lighting equipment and LED technology not available on the open retail market.
Lighting Fixtures
Restaurant bar lighting fixtures can range from the simple to the ultra-modern and classically ornate. The interior architecture, design, and overall theme of the restaurant will play a big role in determining what types of fixtures you select. In most cases, restaurant bar lighting fixtures tend to output lower than normal levels of light and tend to be low voltage devices installed with the intention of reducing power costs.
ILD will design you a system that is both practical and decorative at the same time, ranging from contemporary ceiling and recessed lights for high-end facilities, pendant lights and chandeliers for refined environments, and small specialty lamps for cozy, traditional settings.
Practical Concerns
Although the styles of fixtures employed in restaurant bar lighting tend to vary a great deal, the same practical considerations have to be taken into account in virtually every facility. Down lighting is a must for both patrons and staff because it provides the most effective and even source of task light that provides enough light to see without overwhelming the eyes. Incidentally, humans need only minimal amounts of light to move around, so lights over a restaurant bar and surrounding floor space can be very Spartan in their output and still produce optimal results.
Bartenders, however, need to see to make the drinks. In order to avoid disrupting the atmosphere, our designers often install low profile under cabinet strip lights that provide bright task light for mixing drinks and washing dishes. The only light the patrons might notice coming from these fixtures is a gentle radiance that emanates from behind the counter and actually works toward contributing to the mystique environment.
Very often as well, bars will have a mirror spanning the length of the back wall. This mirror helps visually expand the environment and merchandise wine and liquor. Lighting here represents both a challenge and a very high reward if you contract a firm that has the skills necessary to angle dimmable light indirectly at the mirror so as to avoid reflecting it back into patron’s eyes.
Lighting Control
Due to the large amounts of money generated by most restaurant bars, lighting controls are strongly recommended. A trained lighting control and automation expert can assess your interior architecture, calculate the necessary luminance to adequately light all of your floor space, and program different lighting themes into a central Lutron Grafik Eye, Vantage, or AMX control unit.
These controls are extremely easy to operate from concealed touch panels or wireless hand held remotes. They will allow you to use your lighting to set the mood specific to different crowds, occasions, and seasons of the year. Everything from Happy Hour, conventions and corporate events, and personal birthday parties can be augmented and accentuated with a lighting control system by ILD.
Special Equipment and Techniques
A final advantage to consider when thinking of installing your own lighting system or hiring a lighting design firm is the access to special equipment and lighting techniques that only a professional firm can offer you. Working with a multi-specialist firm such as ILD gives you access to lighting design strategies and equipment you may not have been aware of or considered.
For example, if your restaurant has a wood structure bar on the patio, patio lights normally used in outdoor settings can also be used for overhead and accent lighting of the eaves and beams. Any number of design themes can be implemented as well; from a decorative festive look using rope lights, to a tropical island look using LED signs and decorative candles.
Keep in mind too that LED technology of any kind represents both a high-end technical advantage and a low-end cost to the restaurant owner. LED requires only 20% the electricity of incandescent lighting, and sophisticated commercial equipment like Traxon panel lights can be substituted for a back wall mirror to create a multi-colored spectrum of changing lights. Our lighting control and automation team can also synchronize these panels with music, so that when the songs change, the lights change with them.
Multi-Specialization Offers our Clients More Options
ILD has worked for 25 years to become a leader in not just one, but five major lighting design and electrical service disciplines. As a result, we can offer our clients in hospitality, high-end resort lighting, commercial lighting, bar and restaurant lighting, hotel, and residential landscape lighting more options and more equipment than retail sources can provide..
We headquarter in Houston and work throughout Texas in Austin, Texas, Beaumont, Texas, Dallas, Texas, Fort Worth, Texas, San Antonio, Texas and all surrounding areas.
Contact us now toll free at 1-800-663-1184 for a free consultation. Please visit our lighting blog to read more about lighting controls, home automation, and specialty restaurant lighting and hospitality lighting design by ILD.
Labels: Architectural Lighting Houston Texas, Commercial Landscape Lighting, Hospitality Lighting Designers, Outdoor Restaurant Lighting, Restaurant Bar Lighting
posted by xinger at
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