Renovating or Repositioning a Restaurant or Bar

Refresh, renovate or reposition

The words are often used interchangeably, but they describe three different projects, with different costs and risks.

• A refresh keeps the concept and the customer, and updates what guests see and touch: finishes, lighting, furniture, menus and uniforms. It suits a business that still trades well in a room that has aged.
• A renovation changes the building: the layout, the seating, the bar, the kitchen or the services behind them. It suits a concept that still works in a space that is working against it.
• A repositioning changes the business: who the venue is for, what it offers and at what price, with the room, the menu and the service moving together. It suits a venue whose offer has drifted away from the guests it needs.

Choosing the wrong one is expensive either way. A new room around an unchanged offer gives guests little new reason to visit. A full repositioning where a refresh would have done spends capital the business did not need to spend.

Diagnosis before design

Before anything is drawn, BDS looks at how the venue trades now:

• Sales by day and daypart: when the venue is full, and when it is not.
• The menu: which dishes and drinks sell, which earn, and which do neither.
• The bar: how the range, the stations and the pour hold up at the busiest hour.
• The floor: how the seating matches the way guests arrive, and how far service has to travel.
• The kitchen: whether it can produce the menu at the covers the room allows.
• Reviews and regulars: what guests praise, what they complain about, and what still brings people back.

A diagnosis should end in a written brief: what has to change, what should stay, and what the change has to achieve. What stays matters as much as what changes, because an established venue has goodwill worth keeping. Design starts from that brief, for the same reason a concept should come before its interior.

What can change

Once the brief is clear, the change can reach any part of the business. Each part affects the others, so they are planned together:

• Layout and covers: seating matched to how guests arrive, and shorter service routes.
• The bar: stations, storage, the back bar and, in a brewpub, the number of taps and how the range rotates.
• The menu: its length, its pricing and what it asks of the kitchen.
• The kitchen: equipment and stations matched to the menu, with the pass in the right place for the floor.
• The brand: name, identity, menus, uniforms and signage, so the new position is visible from the door.
• Service: how the team works the room, and the training that goes with every change.

Each of these draws on BDS’s expertise: restaurant design for the layout and kitchen, bars and microbreweries for the bar, food and beverage for the menu, brand and growth for the identity, and operations for service and training.

Trading through the works, or closing

Every renovation has to settle whether the venue keeps trading. Staying open protects income and keeps regulars in the habit of visiting, but the works must be phased around service and guests see the business mid-change. Closing makes the works faster and cleaner and allows a clear relaunch, but income stops and regulars have to be won back.

The answer depends on how much is changing and how much the business relies on its regulars. When the kitchen, the bar or the services behind them move, a planned closure is usually more practical; when the change is mostly surfaces and furniture, it can often be phased around trade. The phasing, any closure and what it means for staff and stock should be settled before work starts. A closure can also be put to use, training the team on the new menu and service while the room is finished.

Relaunch

A repositioned venue has to tell people it has changed. Regulars need to know that what they came for is still there, or better; new guests need a reason to try a venue they may already have made up their minds about. The relaunch is planned with the renovation, not after it: identity, menus and uniforms ready for the first day, trial services on the new offer, and photography that shows the venue as it now trades. It is judged by repeat visits, not opening-week reach.

In practice: Nuts & Brew, Guwahati

Nuts & Brew was already an established, trading microbrewery in Guwahati when BDS was brought in for its 2025 repositioning. The brief was to reposition the business for a new generation of guests, not only to renovate the room.

The interiors were renovated and modernised, and the food programme, the food and drinks menus and the staff uniforms were redesigned. In a brewery the tap list is the core of the offer, and the beer programme grew from four beers on tap to eight. The repositioned venue reopened in April 2025.

From the operator’s side

Rish Saini, Founder & Director of BDS, is also Founder & Director of Underdoggs, founded in 2011, and Director of Mrs Kaur’s Bakery & Cafe since 2009. Running venues long after they open is where the studio’s view of renovation comes from: whether a venue needs new paint, a new layout or a new idea is a question about the business before it is a question about the room.

BDS is an operator-led studio based in Gurgaon, working across Delhi NCR and India. To talk through a renovation, start a conversation with BDS or call +91 98187 00006.