Meeting ceiling requirements in restaurant settings

Open kitchens

The concept of an open or exposed kitchen is not new. Anyone who has watched a short-order chef flip burgers on the other side of a lunch counter or admired the flourishes of a sushi itamae at the cutting board has experienced their performance in an open kitchen. Their polished motions, the sizzle of the grill, and the wafting aroma is part of the dining experience. An expanded variety of dining establishments have placed some or all of their culinary areas in view of their patrons. The concept has been growing, especially in fine dining establishments, as guests have grown more cautious about food quality and purity. Restaurateurs see transparency as a way to allay these fears. An open kitchen can also be a form of entertainment.

One approach is to differentiate the seating and culinary zones by using different types of ceilings, such as a lay-in ceiling over seating juxtaposed against a hard-lid soffit above food prep. The alternative is to use a single ceiling product throughout the room—one that is attractive and acoustical, yet also impervious and cleanable. The latter approach has the advantages of visually unifying the space, reducing construction costs, and facilitating relocation of the culinary area without needing to remodel the ceiling. Examples range from the elegant antipasto bar (Figure 5) to the no-nonsense service line (Figure 6).

Ceilings à la carte

In addition to front- and back-of-house ceiling “entrees,” some facilities also require a selection of ceiling “hors d’œuvres” for ancillary spaces. For example, entryway vestibules may require hold-down clips to prevent suspended ceiling panels from uplift due to changes in air pressure when doors open. Toilet room ceilings, ranging from mundane to elaborately themed designs, should be selected with regard to potential exposure to water and humidity, as well as the rigors of frequent and aggressive cleaning. Back-of-house areas such as dry storage and staff break rooms can be ceiled with less robust products than culinary areas. The front-of-house may also have a range of requirements for ceilings in lobbies, lounges, meeting rooms, and other settings.

With so many types of ceilings on the menu, the challenge is to find the perfect recipe for a project’s success.

Authors’ note: Michael Chusid, RA, FCSI, CDT, who passed away in 2022, was a recognized authority on building products, and a frequent contributor to The Construction Specifier. He played a significant part in the writing of this article, although he was, unfortunately, not able to review the final version.

 Notes

¹ A study of retail establishments compared the relative visibility of ceilings and floors as seen by a customer entering the front door. It found, on average, five times more ceiling is visible because floor space is concealed by furniture and fixtures. For more information, visit http://bit.ly/ceiling-floor-ratio.

² “Acoustic ceiling” and similar terms refer to all types of ceilings which have noise-reducing properties. It is not a synonym for “mineral fiber ceiling.” If the term is used in construction documents, the product requirements must be clearly identified in project specifications.

³ See “Good Acoustical Quality in Restaurants: A Compromise Between Speech Intelligibility and Privacy,” by Arianna Astolfi and Marco Filippi, Marco, published in 2003 by Politecnico di Torino. For more information, visit https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267920089.

 Authors

Ben Carr is the customer service manager for ceiling manufacturer Ceilume. Carr can be reached via www.ceilume.com/pro.

Steven H. Miller is a construction document technologist (CDT) and freelance writer specializing in issues in the construction industry. Miller can be reached at steve@metaphorce.com.