Virtual tour for a cafe: how to show the atmosphere before booking

A virtual tour of a cafe solves the main task of the establishment - to remove the guest’s doubts even before he calls the administrator. Flat photos are deceptive: a wide-angle lens makes a narrow room look spacious, and the warm light in staged photos almost never matches the evening lighting. In a 3D tour, a person himself “walks” between the tables, turns 360°, sees the distance to his neighbors and understands whether a group of six people will fit at the window. We at 360° Space have been filming such tours since 2019 - from small 40 m² coffee shops to restaurant complexes with summer verandas.

Why does a restaurant need a 3D tour?

When we did a tour for a chain of coffee shops in Kazan (three points, filming in one day), the owner sent a screenshot from the CRM a month later: the number of bookings from the site almost doubled, and calls with the question “do you have a separate room?” became noticeably smaller. The reasons we see in practice:

• Increase in bookings by 20–35%. The guest sees the hall, selects a table and reserves it specifically - on the tour we put clickable labels directly on the tables.
• Minus 40% of untargeted calls. Questions about the number of seats, the presence of a children's corner, accessibility for strollers - everything is visible on the tour.
• +15% to the average check at banquets. The event customer immediately understands the capacity of the hall and is not afraid that “there won’t be enough space for the cake and gifts.”
• SEO bonus: +25–40% time on site. Google and Yandex love pages with interactive content - the tour keeps the user engaged for 2-4 minutes instead of the usual 30 seconds.
• Ready content for social networks. From the tour we take out separate panoramas for Instagram, TikTok, Yandex.Maps and 2GIS.

Tourists are a different story. A guest from out of town chooses where to have dinner by looking at his phone in the subway. If you have a tour, but your neighbors do not, the choice is often made in your favor in seconds.

How it works

Photographing a cafe usually takes from 2 to 5 hours depending on the area. We work at night or before opening so as not to disturb guests. When filming a 600 m² restaurant in Moscow, we left at 6 am and finished it in 4 hours - before the first shift of cooks.

Technology - Matterport Pro3. The camera scans the space from points every 2–2.5 meters, automatically stitches panoramas and builds an accurate 3D floor plan with an error of 1%. At the output you get:

• Interactive tour with transitions between points (walk-through).
• Dollhouse is a type of “doll house” where the entire restaurant is visible from above in section.
• Floor plan with actual dimensions - convenient for calculating banquets.
• Clickable tags: menu, photos of dishes, “book a table” button.

We deliver the finished tour in 3-5 working days. You can store and display in three ways: (1) in the 360° Space cloud - fast servers, technical support, updates; (2) on the customer’s server - if you have your own IT infrastructure and data requirements; (3) an offline version for PC or a separate assembly for a VR headset - relevant for exhibitions and presentations to investors. One client from St. Petersburg asked for an offline version to demonstrate the concept at a HoReCa exhibition.

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How much does a virtual tour cost for a cafe?

The cost depends on the area, number of zones and additional options (menu labels, integration with the reservation system, interface branding). Approximate ranges:

• Small coffee shop up to 80 m² - from 15,000 ₽.
• Cafe or bar 80–200 m² - from 25,000 ₽.
• Restaurant 200–500 m² with several halls - from 45,000 ₽.
• Restaurant complex with a veranda and banquet rooms - on request.

The price includes an operator visit, processing, placement and a year of technical support. It is more convenient to calculate the exact figure for your object in a calculator - it takes into account the area, number of floors and the necessary integrations.

What almost always pays for itself in 2-3 months is adding reservation tags directly to the tables. The guest clicks on the table by the window and is taken to the reservation form for that particular place. We did such integration for a wine bar - 60% of bookings came through the tour in the first month.