The Restaurant Mindest

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Most people assume the restaurant world and corporate dining operate in two completely different universes. One is experience-driven, curated, and obsessed with detail. The other is often seen as transactional, all about speed, scale, and consistency.

But I don’t see it that way. Between my early career in restaurants and after decades in multiple environments, I believe the real differentiator in modern B&I food service is a restaurant mindset, and it’s something I’ve worked to embed in every program, team, and café I’ve led.

Hospitality-First Culture

In restaurants, every guest is a relationship. We train to anticipate needs, personalize experiences, and make people feel seen. In B&I, that mindset transforms a standard lunch into a moment of care and connection, a reason employees want to come to the office.

Daily Creativity & Seasonal Cooking

Restaurant chefs cook with the seasons, adapting menus, telling stories through ingredients, and using creativity to solve challenges. In cafés, this translates into evolving, story-driven menus that avoid repetition and bring inspiration to the everyday.

Visual & Emotional Storytelling

From plate presentation to menu boards, we eat with our eyes. A restaurant mindset should treat each station like a brand within a brand. thoughtful, visually appealing, and emotionally engaging. You feel it the moment you walk in.

Pride in Craft

Restaurant kitchens run on discipline and pride. Every station matters. That same level of culinary care applied to a high-volume café creates a noticeable difference in how food tastes, how teams show up, and how clients respond.

Guest Experience by Design

In restaurants, we obsess over the path of the guest.  How they move, what they see, what they feel. In B&I, I’ve applied that same thinking to café layouts, service flow, and guest communication to create smoother, more inviting experiences.

In today’s workplace, food is no longer a utility; it’s part of the culture strategy. A restaurant mindset elevates the café from “just a place to grab lunch” into a brand experience, a community builder, and a reason people want to be on site.

This isn’t about making corporate dining fancier.  It’s about making it feel more human. More intentional. More memorable.

I’ve seen the impact this shift can make: higher participation, better guest feedback, stronger chef engagement, and more meaningful conversations with clients who are hungry for differentiation.

The biggest shift is in how you think about the experience as a whole. In a restaurant, everything flows from a single, cohesive idea: the food theme, the lighting, the plating, the pacing, the music, even the uniforms. It’s designed. Nothing is thrown together, and nothing is accidental.   But in many B&I cafés, that cohesion gets lost. The space becomes a collection of stations, a grill here, a salad bar there, a global station tucked in a corner, often built around operational efficiency or legacy layouts, not guest flow or storytelling.

Activating the Full Potential of the Café

A restaurant mindset looks at every square foot with intention. Here’s how to rethink café space in B&I:

• Create multi-functional zones. Design areas within the café that flex throughout the day - morning coffee nooks, lunchtime collaboration tables, and relaxed afternoon lounges. Flexible equipment that can move in and out of space depending on the need.
   
• Encourage all-day use. "Beyond the Café" Equip cafés with charging stations, softer seating, maybe even stronger Wi-Fi to make them natural “third spaces” between their desk and a meeting room.
   
• Program beyond meals. Host mid-morning wellness breaks, chef-led tastings, coffee and food education sessions, or after-hours meetups, creating events that give the space life, long after the last meal is served.
   
• Brand the space with intention. Treat the café as a living part of the company’s culture. Through lighting, messaging, music, and visuals, create an environment that aligns with the company’s identity and values.

• Unifies the vision. Instead of a fragmented collection of food "stations", you get a curated experience with a shared narrative. Seasonal, cultural, or brand-aligned.
   
• Designs with emotion in mind. Think about how the guest feels from the moment they walk in. What do they smell? What do they see? Are they greeted with warmth? In many B&I cafés, there’s no sensory entry point, just function.
   
• Treats each concept like a micro-restaurant. Each station has its own identity, but under a common brand lens with consistent hospitality, elevated signage, and an intentional guest flow.
   
• Elevates the vibe. We bring in the tools you’d see in a great restaurant, chalkboard specials, chef’s corner highlights, menus that actually tell a story to give the café some personality and make it feel current, not corporate.
   
• It’s about flow, not just volume. In restaurants, there is choreographed service. In B&I, this mindset helps us move from a cafeteria model to something that feels alive. We’re not just trying to push people through the line, we’re creating a rhythm that feels natural and welcoming.
   
• Turns the café into a place people actually want to be. When the food hits, the service feels personal, and the space has some soul, it stops being just a cafeteria and starts becoming part of the culture. People come back because it feels good to be there.