As restaurant and entertainment, or eatertainment, venues evolve to improve their customer experience, our team continues to adapt and enhance strategies to deliver innovative solutions. Whether transforming existing spaces into tenant-ready locations for entertainment or designing new venues, combining creativity and technical expertise to meet the unique demands of the industry is becoming the norm to keep up with wants and needs of the customer. Sometimes considered “restertainment,” “barcade,” or even “makertainment” spaces, these eatertainment venues often have unique challenges that extend beyond standard tenant upgrades. Some of the key challenges include:

Mechanical Systems: Proper ventilation, exhaust, and cooling are essential for maintaining comfortable environments in restaurants and entertainment venues. Eatertainment type facilities often have a combination of kitchen load and occupancy/entertainment equipment load. This load exceeds typical retail space design capacities. There is the potential for this leading to the base building not having adequate cooling capacity for the space. It is important to have an understanding of your cooling load and available cooling capacity from the landlord (when applicable) during lease negotiations. Another item to consider early on is if a pollution control unit will be required (such as filtered or electrostatic precipitators). Pollution control may be triggered by grease exhaust discharge location or landlord requirements but are always easier to manage when identified early in a project. If required, your engineer should go over the pros and cons of both filtered and electrostatic type pollution control units, as filtered has a lower initial cost and higher maintenance cost, while electrostatic has a higher initial cost but less maintenance cost due to having fewer filters to replace. Both have a very large footprint and may need to be in a fire rated room if located indoors.

Plumbing: Reliable water supply and domestic water heating systems are important for facilities to operate efficiently. Water pressure should be measured early in design to determine if a booster pump is needed. Discussions on the use of tanked vs tankless water heaters should occur early in design, with tanked water heaters offering less equipment and lower initial cost but potentially taking up more floor space and having less redundancy than instantaneous water heaters. Grease interceptors are also essential to maintaining smooth operations, manage waste effectively, and comply with health and safety standards. Interceptors can be either larger gravity fed interceptors or smaller hydromechanical interceptors (where allowed by Authorities Having Jurisdiction).

Electrical Systems: Entertainment venues often use advanced lighting and sound systems, while restaurants may rely on specialized kitchen equipment and technology, both of which require utility services that can handle high energy demands to prevent disruptions during their busiest hours. Many eatertainment concepts are looking at occupying spaces that have watts/sf higher than what the typical retail space. This can be due to the type of entertainment equipment being used and the kitchen equipment requirements. This takes early coordination with the landlord to determine a path for additional power required for the tenant or to coordinate additional service from the utility company. When looking at spaces, it’s important to understand how much electrical capacity is needed vs how much is available, having a plan of attack prior to signing a lease.

Fire and Life Safety: Fire alarms and assembly occupancy requirements are critical to eatertainment venues to ensure the safety and compliance of guests, staff, and owners. Being able to address these requirements early on ensures a seamless approval process for when the building is ready to open. Larger eatertainment spaces may have to meet requirements for a voice/alarm communication system. It may also be important to understand how the tenant space alarm system functions in order for integration into any base building alarm systems. Other determining factors include if an event outside of the tenant space would require alarms going off within. Depending on the size of the development, this may be a hindrance to operations.

Acoustical and Structural Engineering: Noise and vibration isolation are essential, especially when neighboring tenants or community spaces require minimal disruption. Providing noise isolation will address tenant concerns and create an enjoyable environment for surrounding neighbors. Working with an acoustical consultant or engineer who has experience with environmental noise studies provides the ability to determine how impactful potential noise pollution can be and receive recommendations for noise reduction.

Aligning Design with Functionality

Early collaboration with your engineering partners can be critical to the success of these projects. Identifying and selecting ideal spaces that meet the building system requirements of your program is preferred. Sometimes, the perfect location doesn’t come with the most perfect infrastructure. In this instance, a good engineer can help you address items that present budget concerns or compromise ideal space configurations, and prioritize recommendations to minimize the impact to the final design.

Proactive Partnerships

Having engineers that you trust to provide you with creative solutions to your innovative ideas is important when developing an eatertainment venue formerly occupied by different business types. For example, should the project require it, our engineers are able to identify whether placement of sewer lines and other infrastructure are compatible with the selected building space. If a space was previously occupied by a similar business, it may require fewer upgrades, such as a former restaurant with existing ventilation and plumbing systems or fitness studio requiring similar lighting and HVAC systems. This insight prevents costly delays and ensures that everything is placed efficiently.

Creating Spaces for Long-Term Success

Whether you’re utilizing a design-build or design-bid-build execution strategy, there are opportunities for early collaboration that should be captured. Henderson has collaborated with various contractors to address challenges early in the design process. Additionally, we’ve collaborated with owners during lease negotiations when they have more leverage than landlords. These proactive approaches ensure that potential issues are identified and resolved upfront, leading to a smoother transition, and making the entire process more efficient and cost-effective for all involved. Recently, our team applied this early coordination strategy to provide a seamless transition of design, technical acoustic requirements, ventilation, lighting, and business needs for Puttshack, an upscale indoor mini golf experience. The high-tech social atmosphere combines gaming, dining, and technology into a single experience by featuring automated scoring, interactive gameplay, and immersive visual and audio elements to bring the game to life, creating a unique combination that elevates mini golf by offering a mix of entertainment and convenience for customers.

Having engineers involved in the beginning is essential for projects like Puttshack or that of F1 Arcade, where technology and functionality must align with the space and client goals. This is why our team often looks beyond the immediate needs of a project, designing environments that are adaptable and ready for future advancements; whether it’s elevating a new restaurant or retail location or transforming a historic structure into a modern functional space.

Henderson Knows Eatertainment

Bringing buildings to life is more than implementing the latest technology into a space, it’s about working together and providing valuable insights to maintain operational effectiveness throughout the life of the building. Our team has worked on numerous projects across the country, from cutting-edge retail spaces to the latest in entertainment venues, participating every step of the way. At Henderson, we focus on innovative, sustainable design and construction methods to help tenants get the most out of their space. No matter the type of business, whether it’s a restaurant, retail shop, or entertainment spot, our team is committed to providing tailored solutions to help buildings function and reach their full potential for long-term success.