If you’ve arrived at this blog, chances are you are seeking inspiration or ideas for a restaurant uniform for your staff. First impressions are vital for restaurants as you want to set the best possible precedent for guests, the moment they walk through the door. Whilst the success of a dining experience will be heavily reliant on the quality of the food, there are many other key factors, such as the environment, service and presentation, that are vital for creating a memorable occasion.
In a world where visual appeal is essential, your staff’s uniform becomes an integral part of shaping the overall perception of your restaurant. A carefully designed uniform can help enhance the professionalism of your restaurant team, strengthen brand identity, and generally help contribute to creating a more immersive brand experience. We are going to explore some of the best restaurant uniform ideas for 2024, as well as provide you with a few general tips when it comes to designing a restaurant uniform for your employees.
Trendy Restaurant Staff Uniform Ideas For 2024
It’s important to ensure that your restaurant staff uniform matches your brand and desired dining experience. Here are some of the most popular restaurant staff uniform ideas in 2024:
- Elevated basics – white tops, dark bottoms, and sleek black aprons create a clean and modern look.
- Expressing individuality – small personal touches to a more casual uniform such as name tags or embroidered messages, promoting staff identity while maintaining cohesion.
- Pops of colour – using brand colours accented on accessories to add a touch of personality, whilst maintaining a professional uniform.
Before we get stuck into general considerations to make when designing a staff restaurant uniform, we will take a closer look at the styles listed above.
Elevated basics
A timeless style of restaurant uniform that ensures your staff will always be looking their sharpest. This creates a clean, professional yet modern look that will simply always stay in fashion – a perfect style for many restaurants or hospitality venues to adopt. Here are some of the key garments that really make this uniform work:
- T-shirts – You can’t go wrong with a crisp white t-shirt to bring out the elevated basics uniform style. We would suggest pairing a lighter t-shirt with a dark set of bottoms, for the most professional restaurant uniform style. To perfect this look, we would highly recommend personalising a t-shirt with your company logo. Don’t forget to use the back of the t-shirt as well to convey additional brand messaging or imagery!
- Polo shirts – For a slightly more professional representation, you could consider outfitting your team in polo shirts instead. The addition of a collar can add a touch of class to any restaurant uniform and polo shirts are becoming a more popular garment with many hospitality clients we work with. Again, we would recommend customising polo shirts with your logo and branding to elevate a basic garment into a stunning company uniform.
- Aprons – For your kitchen and front-of-house staff, it is important to keep other uniform garments protected from the restaurant environment. The elevated basics look is complemented perfectly by a sleek black apron, juxtaposed against the white top. We would recommend adding a logo to the apron in a more subtle manner, positioning this in the centre-middle area of the apron.
- Bottoms – To finish off the elevated basics restaurant look, we would suggest pairing the light top with a dark set of bottoms. Cargo trousers can be a great shout to help create a more relaxed, but still professional, look. Dark-wash jeans are also a strong option.
Overall, the elevated basics look makes the perfect foundation for any restaurant uniform, and can often be built upon with a few other styles which we will highlight below.
Expressing individuality
This style of restaurant uniform has become increasingly popular over recent years, enabling your team to maintain a professional look, whilst allowing individuality and personal representation. Paired with the elevated basics style, it can create a more relaxed and welcoming atmosphere for your guests. Here are some ways to incorporate this style:
- Printed name tags – One trend we have seen over recent years is restaurants opting to print employee names directly onto the uniform. This quirky idea allows for individuality to be shown directly on a restaurant uniform, and is ideal for small boutique cafes or eateries. Why not add a printed name tag to one of our work t-shirts?
- Custom accessories – If you work in a more casual restaurant or hospitality environment, you may also want to consider introducing hats or caps as part of the uniform. Hats or caps can be a great way to introduce a more relaxed vibe to a restaurant uniform, especially when being used as a canvas for employee expression. We work with several companies that allow team members a degree of customisation to some uniform items, and adding a personalised design to a hat is a great way to facilitate this.
Expressing individuality can be another great restaurant uniform style to consider if you strive to create a more relaxed atmosphere, that is highly personal to each guest.
Pops of colour
This style utilises small pops of colour, often incorporating your brand colours, to add personality to an otherwise more neutral uniform. This can be achieved through adding colourful designs to t-shirts, polo shirts or other garments. Pops of colour can be combined with the elevated basics style – ideal for restaurants seeking a balance between professionalism and vibrancy. If you need help in bringing your restaurant uniform to life with a pop of colour, contact our expert design team who are always happy to help.
General tips for designing staff restaurant uniforms
Once you’ve chosen the right style for your restaurant, here are some general tips to consider when designing your staff uniforms:
- Comfort – opt for comfortable fabrics that allow your staff to move around freely and perform their duties with ease. Nobody likes to be uncomfortable at work, and this is even more important in a hot kitchen environment. Consider an organic cotton t-shirt for the ultimate blend of comfort and style.
- Durability – you don’t want to have to constantly repurchase staff uniforms, so choose a trusted workwear supplier who only uses the highest quality printing methods.
- Visibility & branding – ensure your uniforms are easily identifiable as part of your restaurant’s brand. This can be achieved through the colour scheme, logo placement, or unique branding elements.
These three top tips will help ensure that your restaurant staff uniform will stand the test of time, and show off your brand in the best light. If you are still stuck for restaurant uniform ideas or need help perfecting your design before ordering, please contact our team – we are always happy to help!
