When you first walk into a store or a restaurant, presentation is everything. So imagine you walk into a restaurant door and see…the trash/condiment fixture. When you have an editor’s mind you end up editing everything, and when I was eating lunch at  the Wolfgang Puck Express eatery in the Minneapolis airport last week I noticed it is in need of better flow.

The overall design is pleasing to the eye: sleek steel, white subway tile, and dark cherry wood.  The Puck eatery shares space with a bar, and there is a center entry to both. However, when you walk in the center, the first thing you see is…trash fixture/condiment bar. Not very classy. You have to go around it to the right to get to the register, to the left to get food.

Wolfgang Puck Express in Minneapolis airport

But if you go to in the right hand entrance, you’ve got another issue.

Where you start is where you’re supposed to end – the oven where you pick up your food. You have to scoot left to go to the register to order, stepping over people already waiting in line! When I came in, it was early in the lunch hour so it wasn’t busy, but I imagine a traffic pileup on busy days, people who need to order having to push backwards past those who are waiting for food. Bad flow!
How could they solve these issues? They could close off the right entrance. They could move the trash/condiments to the side, thereby opening up the flow in the center, and allowing easy flow to the cash register!