Bar Lights Setting the Mood

A little late getting this post up, but I thought it was cool all the same. This is a picture that I took of a bar in downtown Winter Park on Tuesday night. I don't remember the name of the restaurant, but it is at the very end of Park Ave. and usually has live music in the form of a piano player. There were a couple different cool things going on with the bar light wise. The bar itself was the only one I was able to get a picture of though.

These amber bar lights created great accents for the bar while keeping the mood relaxed and chill. They were not very bright, by no means were they the main light source in the bar, but they really did a good job keeping things near the bar well lit. I feel like often times restaurants and clubs go too far with the mood lighting and keep things really dark, which can be cool I guess but it's not very cool when you're trying to sign a receipt or have a face to face conversation with the people you are with. There is a time for moody, dark lighting, but if you go to far it just gets dark and annoying. This light(similar to the Dave and Buster's one over our table) is another one that I'm not quite sure of how it works. The light was brighter in some areas than others so maybe it's a few single bulbs spread out throughout the bar illuminating the glass from behind. Either way I thought it was a great accent to the bar.

In addition to these lights in the bar itself, the bar had some lights shining on the area behind the bottles. The lights had a gobo in them that sort of looked like water and it was swirling while also changing colors. When I first looked at the wall I was baffled as to how they were achieving that effect, but then I thought on my feet and looked up. Sure enough just a few feet in front of the wall were two fixtures. I think that they were Martin's, but I could not make out the serial # or model #.

Overall it was just cool to see creative use of lights in a restaurant. It makes me wonder how many restaurants take lighting into account when designing their space and if they do design with lighting in mind where it typically happens. Do they include lighting ideas from the very start or is the lighting an afterthought? Quite honestly, I would hope that it would be one of the first things they think about as the lighting of a restaurant can play a huge part in the appetite of your customers.