How to Design a Restaurant for Delivery and Takeout

Discover three ways to set up your Toronto restaurant for delivery and create a pandemic-proof restaurant design.

Article by Jude Kamal, Founder & Registered Interior Designer of Sansa Interiors

The restaurant industry is changing—and it's not a surprise. Since 2014, takeout and delivery orders have been growing 300% faster than dine-in, with apps like SkipTheDishes, Uber Eats, and DoorDash continuing to rise in popularity, people are relying more and more on delivery apps causing the takeout & delivery culture to grow tremendously.

But in 2020, those numbers climbed even higher (due to the lockdowns caused by COVID-19).

Overnight, dine-in options became extremely limited (or non-existent) while takeout and delivery exploded. Owners everywhere quickly saw the importance of overhauling their operations and designing their restaurants for delivery. Businesses that were already set up for online sales and delivery had no issues with this transition, but those who didn’t have the systems in place took a hit or even had to shut down operations completely.

As takeout and delivery sales continue to dominate the market, more and more restaurants are finding themselves needing to adapt and expand the way they serve their customers. Taking pickup orders into account when designing or renovating your restaurant is not only smart, but it'll soon become necessary. Having options and a versatile business model will serve your customers and restaurant on a bigger scale. While delivery apps do charge a percentage of your restaurant’s sales - these fees may be your path to scale up your operations and serve an even larger demographic.

Inside this guide, we'll explore the challenges, advantages, and ways you can effectively design your restaurant for delivery and takeout.

Why Designing Your Restaurant For Delivery is Important

Restaurants are no longer just a dine-in experience. They are multiple experiences carved into one.

As delivery and takeout become a bigger part of the food industry, businesses can no longer afford to just stack takeout bags by the door. Owners are recognizing that they have to adapt their restaurant's design and operations to accommodate this shift.

And the best way to do this? Through dedicated delivery spaces.

What do we mean by "dedicated delivery spaces"? A dedicated delivery space is a permanent (and modular) spot in your restaurant where people can easily go-to place and receive their orders.

By designing dedicated delivery and takeout spaces into your restaurant, pick-up orders become a larger focus instead of an afterthought. You can more easily and readily deliver a high-quality culinary experience even to those customers still at home. Food won't sit cold and neglected, orders won't get mixed up, and you can even accommodate a larger influx of takeaway customers when you have the proper systems in place. By having this dedicated space consist of modular components, your space can move and adjust based on your business needs. Example: modular shelving that is adjustable or takeout consoles on wheels etc.

Through having these delivery-focused spaces, you can even create a better experience for your dine-in customers too! Delivery drivers can now quickly come in and pick up their orders while not disrupting your restaurant's atmosphere. The last thing anyone wants to experience while enjoying dinner, is delivery people and customers coming in and out—zipping past you and discussing the takeout order they're picking up. With designated delivery spaces, you can allow your customers to enjoy the full dine-in experience, while still supporting those getting takeout or delivery to get their warm food fast.

Designing restaurants to easily handle delivery and takeout will become vital over these next few years. As delivery sales continue to rise, it's important for restaurant owners to adapt without hindering their restaurant’s operation and flow.

What are the Challenges of Designing a Restaurant for Delivery?

When it comes to designing a restaurant for delivery, there are a few points to consider. While it may seem like an obvious choice (and it's definitely where the market is headed), this move doesn't come without its challenges including multiple delivery options, hiring extra staff and managing the demand.

While we love a good design challenge, the points below will give you a greater understanding of what you need to consider.

Multiple Delivery Options

SkipTheDishes, Uber Eats, Door Dash, Foodora… which one(s) should you choose? When it comes to selecting a delivery app or apps for your restaurant, it's important to note that every platform needs its own set-up. For some restaurants, this can look like having multiple printers for multiple delivery apps, while others, choose to just stick with one delivery app. Being on more apps gives your restaurant more exposure, but it does come with a bigger up-front cost.

Additional Staff

As delivery and takeout become a bigger part of the industry, some restaurants are finding themselves needing additional staff to manage the operations. Before, restaurants could get away with having the dine-in staff tend to take out orders as needed, but with takeout becoming a bigger branch of the business, it's important to have dedicated people in charge of accepting orders, fulfilling orders, and staying on top of quality control. No one wants their order to be forgotten. 

Managing the Demand

As takeout and delivery rates keep growing, it can almost feel like you're running two businesses at once. Adapting to the increased demand while still providing good service to both sets of customers can be challenging at first. You'll need new systems in place to handle both the dine-in and pick-up crowds to avoid the stress of long wait times and the overwhelm of increased orders. As a restaurant owner, you will also need to train your staff on the varying delivery and takeout softwares and apps, what to do in case of a mixup, how to cope with busy peak periods and so on.

What are the Advantages of Designing a Restaurant for Delivery?

With delivery and takeout on a dramatic rise, having dedicated spaces can be an incredibly lucrative opportunity for restaurant owners. It is so easy to pull up your phone, place an order, and have it right at your door within 30-40 minutes. I myself find ordering takeout from a 3rd party delivery app so convenient, especially during the week and on extremely hectic and long days. We all got a little bit too spoiled.

The advantages of designing a restaurant for delivery and pick up means more exposure and sales from platforms like UberEats, Skip the Dishes and Just Eat as well as diversifying to making your business resilient.

More Exposure = More Sales

Delivery apps are a fantastic way for locals to get to know your restaurant. Whether someone just moved to the area or they've never heard of your establishment before, these delivery apps will put your restaurant right in front of thousands of potential new customers. And with more and more people downloading these apps, the user base grows every day. 

Better Dining Experience

With separate or designated delivery zones, your dine-in customers can simply sit and enjoy their food—without being disturbed by delivery drivers coming in and out. The atmosphere can remain unchanged, and the patrons can more fully enjoy their time at your restaurant. These separate spaces also allow the delivery drivers to quickly pick up their orders and deliver them without delay—providing better, focused service for all your customers.

Resilient Business Model

In this age of uncertainty, having dedicated delivery operations will allow your business to still run no matter how the laws and rules around the dining shift. If sit-down options are closed, then delivery can still operate. This creates a resilient restaurant set-up that can truly stand the test of time.

5 Ways to Set Up Your Restaurant For Delivery and Takeout

Now that we've explored the pro's and con's of having dedicated delivery spaces, let's dive into exactly how you can create better systems through interior design.

Whether you're partnering up with DoorDash, Uber Eats, SkipTheDishes, or you're running takeaway on your own, these designs will set you up for success as you expand your delivery and takeout operations.

Here are the top 5 ways you can design your restaurant for flawless delivery:

Large Front Counter

Popular in quick grab-and-go restaurants, the large front counter is where the main food prep space also doubles as the takeaway counter - serving both dine-in and to-go orders. This is fantastic for those cafes and chain restaurants (like subs, burritos, coffee, etc.) that already manage a lot of takeout orders and can easily integrate this into their new or existing infrastructure. The benefit of this design is that you don't need separate staff to manage the takeout and delivery orders - they are all prepared at the same time, as they come in, and are simply placed in the “delivery section” along the front counter 

Here’s an example of large front counter at Hale Coffee


Separate Delivery Entrance

Perfect for large-scale sit-down restaurants, the separate delivery entrance physically differentiates between pick-up orders and dine-in customers. Delivery drivers will have a completely different entrance than people coming to dine-in, allowing the business to operate on almost two different levels. This is a popular design in many Toronto restaurants like Chef On Call, Pizza Libretto, and many large chain restaurants.

This is Coni & Co separate delivery hallway.

Takeout Window

Ideal for smaller restaurants, cafes, and sandwich shops, the takeout window is a front-facing window that can be opened (much like a drive-thru) to take and deliver orders to people on the street. This design allows for a much easier walk-in process and can even speed delivery times. Another benefit to this design, is sometimes not much needs to be altered to accommodate this shift—although you will have to have dedicated staff managing the takeout window.

This is an example of a takeout window at Starter Lab.

Open Pickup Shelving

Great for smaller restaurants that manage a lot of takeouts, the open shelving concept is a dedicated modular shelving unit inside your restaurant to organize takeout and delivery orders. The benefit of this setup is that order numbers are clear and easy to see, letting takeout customers and delivery drivers self-serve—quickly grabbing their order to go. Another benefit of this delivery design is that you don't need dedicated staff managing each individual order. Orders can be prepared and then set on the open shelving space for takeaway.

Here’s an example of an open shelving unit at Sweetgreen.

Commissary or Ghost Kitchens

For restaurants where takeout and delivery is their primary revenue stream (or one of), commissary kitchens (also known as ghost kitchens) can be a great option. Commissaries are separate commercial kitchen spaces that restaurants can rent to exclusively fulfill their takeaway orders. This restaurant design is perfect for operations like food trucks that can't cook on-site, for pop-up chefs that need a workable but impermanent workspace, for virtual restaurants that don't have a brick-and-mortar during regular business hours, for restaurants that want to expand their delivery service into new regions, and more. Renting a kitchen that you exclusively use to cook and prepare delivery orders can be a great option for businesses looking to expand their takeaway and delivery options.

Open concept renovations are incredible at bringing new life to outdated spaces.

Though they may not work for every home (and every budget), they're one of the most popular floor plans for a reason—their ability to bring in more light, create lively entertaining spaces, and even increase the value of your home, is highly desirable.

We love the dramatic transformation that an open concept renovation can bring.

If you're ready to explore transforming your home into the open concept layout of your dreams, our team at Sansa Interiors is here to support you.

3 Examples of Real Takeaway and Delivery Designs

At Sansa Interiors, we've been right there as the restaurant industry continues to adapt and evolve. More and more of our clients come to us looking to design their restaurants for takeaway. 

Here, we've included 3 takeaway and delivery designs so you can see how we've applied some of these concepts into real restaurants with different needs, locations, and customer bases.

Mean Bao

As a fully takeout model, Mean Bao needed their restaurant design to exclusively cater to their on-the-go crowd. This design uses a blend of the takeout window with the large front counter to streamline their takeout process and create a smoother customer experience.

Chef On Call

Chef On Call takes pride in their unique approach to high-end convenience and delivery dispatch. Therefore, their design had to reflect that. This restaurant design is a blend of a separate hallway and delivery space, with a large front counter for walk-in orders—accommodating both their booming delivery business with casual dine-in and takeout customers.

Hale Coffee

This Hale Coffee kiosk needed a design that could both fit inside their small location while still fully catering to the busy shoppers that primarily made up their customer base. This meant their takeout design had to weave seamlessly into their main operations. For this, we used the large front counter design to create an easy, smooth, and enjoyable customer experience.

As the trends and industry shift towards delivery services, there's a huge opportunity for restaurants to adapt now and start making takeaway a bigger priority. 

Take advantage of this lucrative income stream while creating a more resilient restaurant operation.

Looking for a Restaurant Interior Designer in Toronto?

We can help. If you're ready to incorporate smart delivery design into your new (or existing) restaurant, Sansa Interiors is here to support your killer restaurant biz.