The Smallest Room Makes the Biggest Impression

Every venue has one room that never makes it onto Instagram, never gets mentioned to the waiter, and is never quite forgotten. Yes, we're talking about the toilets.

You can spend months perfecting the menu, the lighting and the playlist, then undo it all in the thirty seconds it takes a guest to discover there's no soap. Customers will forgive a slow kitchen on a busy night. A broken lock, less so.

There's a good reason for this. Guests treat the toilets as an unofficial backstage tour. If the dining room gleams but the loos look tired, they start to wonder what the kitchen looks like. A clean, well-designed washroom quietly tells them the whole operation is cared for.

The good news is that a great customer toilet doesn't need gold taps. It needs the basics done well: lighting that's flattering but practical, hard-wearing surfaces that still look good at 11pm on a Saturday, a hook for coats and bags, a mirror people actually want to use, and signage clear enough that nobody wanders into the kitchen by mistake. Accessible facilities should be designed in from the start, not squeezed in afterwards.

Get it right and the washroom becomes part of the experience: a small moment of calm, perhaps even a talking point.

If your toilets haven't had any attention since the last refit, they may be costing you more goodwill than you think. They're often one of the quickest wins in an upgrade, and we'd be happy to help.

Pictured: the washrooms at Namak, Cork, an Inside Up project.