Sunday, November 18, 2007

All That Space And You Couldn't Squeeze In One More Toilet?

Just came back from a nice dinner at Dean's, a relatively new Italian place on 85th between Broadway and Amsterdam. I'm not a food critic so I'll keep it simple. The food was good and it was cheap.

I am a facilities critic however. This place has a HUGE space. Heck, they sat our group of 17 with ease. After enjoying my pasta and salad, I headed off to the restroom to take care of business. Apparently the designers who did wonders with all this space decided to take a less is more approach when it came to the bathroom. Two urinals and one toilet! Let me repeat: TWO URINALS AND ONE TOILET??!!!

Not to get too detailed here, but a big restaurant should have more than one toilet, especially if they're serving heavy Italian food and then perhaps an espresso to follow. I don't want to worry about what diners or bars I can run into on the way home to squeeze one out because I couldn't wait for the toilet to open up in a restaurant.

Now there are general rules of design that dictate that the amount of toilets and urinals should correspond to the amount of people a place can hold. That doesn't seem to be the case these days. I notice this at a lot of new joints. They're cheaping out on the restrooms. I don't know if the city has someone in charge of restroom codes, but if not then I am throwing my hat into the bowl!

1 comment:

Xmastime said...

ha!! one time Op and I went to some big Italian family-style joint in midtown (Carmines?) they give you enough food, you literally think youre about to burst. and the room is HUGE, easily 40+ big tables. I go to "relieve myself" and there was ONE toilet!! I was shocked. a place that serves cucumber popsicles maybe, but this joint? surprised they didnt serve you ON shitters. can still remember it. cracked me up. ONE toilet!!