Most children love going to fast food restaurants, that’s an undisputed fact. It isn’t just the food they like, it’s also the toys, jungle gyms, and play areas. Many parents have had their share of going to and eating at these convenience food establishments, I’m sure. Still, fast food environments can only be tolerated so far. Sometimes adults want to patronize a dining facility that goes beyond the fast food experience in terms of food and furniture, something that has contemporary bistro tables and the like, but which their children can enjoy as well. A mix of childlike whimsy and adult sensibility would be a nice combination.

One such establishment that has achieved that is Restaurant Praq, which is located in Ouderkerk near Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The word “praq” comes from a Dutch expression that denotes the mashing of food, but you can see from the picture above that it isn’t a mishmash of designs at all! The car-shaped tables and the more conventionally-shaped ones in the restaurant don’t clash at all. Tjep, the design agency responsible for creating the restaurant’s look, attempted to integrate playfulness with class and practicality – and it looks like they succeeded.

Adults certainly wouldn’t find themselves sitting in Lilliputian chairs at Restaurant Praq, even if they did decide to sit at the tables obviously designed with children in mind. Their other table designs, geared towards adults, still retain a sense of the whimsical, which I think even children can appreciate. Tjep’s design team, led by principals Frank Tjepkama and Janneke Hooymans, took the child-adult factors into deep consideration and came up with the concept the restaurant shows today, something that has received praise from both restaurant industry professionals and the general public. No wonder then that Tjep has received commissions to work on designing interiors for various commercial establishments, both in the Netherlands and abroad.