Dining areas: bathrooms

The size of your bathroom will depend on the seating capacity of your restaurant. Among the authorities, you can find two really different schools of thought on the location of the toilets. One group thinks they should station themselves near the entrance, to make sure the company can cool off before dinner; the other thinks they should be located discreetly at the back of the dining room. Do what you want. Realistically, the location of the bathrooms is most likely a function of where exactly the plumbing lines are, and these are usually near the bar and / or kitchen.

Minimum bathroom requirements based on the number of businesses within your restaurant at any given time are spelled out in city ordinances. Needs specify the number of toilets (the common legal name for stall toilets), urinals for men’s restrooms, and toilets (sinks) for washing hands. Within the western United States, most state or local codes are based on the Uniform Plumbing Code (UPC); in the eastern United States, they are much more likely to rely on the International Plumbing Code (IPC); and there is also a National Standard Plumbing Code. An existing list of state-adopted codes can be found on the American Restroom Association website (www.americanrestroom.org). For small businesses, with up to 50 seats, an area of ​​35 to 40 square feet may be the absolute minimum for a toilet and sink.

Lawson believes that a facility with up to 70 seats should allow 75 to 80 square feet of bathroom space. He also believes that the fancier the restaurant (the higher the exam average), the more spacious the bathrooms should be – for example, one urinal for every 15 guests. The ongoing debate in many jurisdictions includes a whimsical name that hides a really real concern. The “toilet parity” is definitely a response to frequent complaints from women that the number of toilets for female companions is rarely enough, particularly in crowded and high-volume places.

While it is true that women spend much more time in the bathroom than men and anticipate enough space for a minimum of privacy, proponents of the IPC, which requires fewer accessories for some situations than the UPC, call the concept of parity to go to the “whimsical” bathroom and they say their code depends on research. Two additional legal necessities govern the bathroom. One is that, in most cities, places that serve alcoholic beverages must have separate bathrooms for men and women; generally, unisex restrooms are not allowed where alcohol income exceeds 30 percent of total income.

The other, which we will cover later in more detail, may be the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which requires accessibility measures and space needs to accommodate the physically challenged business.

It is advisable to have separate bathrooms for staff and clients; however, this is not usually possible. We have found that most restaurants with separate staff restrooms offer 30- to 40-square-foot unisex facilities with 1 toilet and 1 sink.