BY S.BS. Surendran
AS EVERY Malaysian can attest, food is a very integral part of our lives.
As for those in the food business, running a restaurant is not just about serving food to people in exchange for money, but is also a very noble profession.
This is because they are providing nourishment that restores the inner qi (energy) of the person who consumes their food, and which sustains the body and soul at the same time.
Hence, their food should be cooked with ample care and love, to make it more nutritious, and to ensure that their customers return for more.
Besides ensuring good food, these entrepreneurs should also utilise the science of feng shui to create a suitable space for the restaurant, not just from the point of view of growing the business, but also to ensure long-term prosperity.
It’s not just the pricing, style of the décor, and the quality of the food that makes a restaurant popular.
There is also an invisible factor called ‘the qi of the space’ which determines the overall atmosphere.
A successful restaurant always provides an abundance of good quality qi.
If a space has good feng shui, with abundant and smooth-flowing qi, good food and service, then prosperity will follow.
Similar to the home or office, the location of a restaurant, its surroundings, main door position, and the interiors are important from a feng shui design perspective.
Hence having a nice ground on which to build the restaurant, a supportive back (no valley or steep drop behind the restaurant), a good balance of buildings on either side, and an open space in the front which can be made more ‘inviting’ with a spacious car park or water feature, are quintessential elements to make for a successful enterprise.
The forms of the building and its interior spaces should be wholesome, with familiar shapes like squares, circles, and rectangles with moderate length-to-width ratios. Avoid irregular or triangular forms.
A good atmosphere is created by a combination of good interior design, good coordination of colours, décor and furnishings, as well as a good definition of space that offers customers a warm and welcome feeling, and produces wholesome energy.
The interiors of the restaurant should not be too ‘strong’, but should be well-balanced to create a space for people to sit, relax and enjoy their meal, and not send their pulse soaring high or make them feel restless.
One of the most essential requirements for any restaurant is cleanliness. Besides the kitchen where food is prepared, the other important room that must be kept clean is the restroom.
Incidentally, having a restroom close to the kitchen, or in direct view of the dining area is extremely bad feng shui.
One should also utilise the principles of intelligent lighting to increase fire energy, and help the restaurant grow.
Lights should fit the time of day and overall ambience of the restaurant; so having them brighter during lunch time, and dimmer during the evening would help.
Colours also play a vital role in creating the right feel and ambience in food business.
While restaurant owners have many different choices of lightings to choose from, four colours play a key role – white, red, yellow, and green.
The colour yellow stimulates the appetite, while white is the most balanced colour, representing emotions and cleanliness.
Red brings excitement and is associated with desire, and green signifies freshness and nature, which is often associated with a healthy diet.
It’s not surprising that many of the leading international food chain outlets have their logos and interiors based on the above theme colours.
S.BS. Surendran is an accredited master feng shui consultant, bioenergetician and traditional vaastu practitioner. Readers can contact him at lifestyle.fengshui@thesundaily.com.
