Restaurant Furniture Blog

Bar furniture, of course, not always confined to bars - or at least, bars as we traditionally know them. Mention the word ‘bar’ and most people think of alcohol. Yet bars can be found in many other areas. Sushi ‘bars’ were once popular. Diners still sat on bar stools and helped themselves to the various types of sushi on offer. Milk shake or soda bars were once popular and these days, in many homes, we have breakfast bars.

So a bar is not just for serving alcohol. Many restaurants now include an eating area that is nothing more than a bar. This has proven to be popular with singles and those in a hurry. For singles, of course, they are dining with others, even if it is at a bar. Bar furniture then can be used in a wide variety of situations.

The pictured bar stool is of European design although its influence is obviously not from Europe - at least, with a name like the Aztec stool, you would think not. Made out of solid European beechwood, this bar stool is made for commercial use so it has the strength that comes with European furniture. This stool has a walnut finish and can be assembled with or without a padded seat. The footrest is available in brass, silver or black.

Eating at bars has been popular in some areas, particularly with lunch crowds in some of our larger cities. Bar furniture is no longer that staid swivel stool that adorned bars many years ago. Bar furniture now comes in a wide range of designs, some with backs, some without; some with padded seats, some without; and some that are fixed while others are swivel. Finding bar furniture is only difficult now because there is such a range to choose from. Be sure to check the customizations that are available for each piece as well.

We highlight a lot of different restaurant furniture on these pages. We include a broad range of furniture including bar furniture, restaurant tables and chairs, outdoor restaurant furniture and booths. If you are wondering how to obtain a quote on any of these items, follow these easy steps.

• If the item you want is featured on this blog, click on the picture and it will take you directly to that item’s place in the catalog.
• If the item is not featured here, visit our site, www.seatingexpert.com, and click on the relevant category.
• Once you have found the item you wish to obtain a quote on, fill in all the required details. Most items have customization options. Be sure to select the right options for your requirements.
• Enter the quantity you require (note most items have a minimum order quantity).
• Click the add to quote button and continue browsing the catalog until you have completed your requirements.
• Click on the “View Quote” option located on the upper right of the screen.
• Click on the “Request Quote” option located on the bottom left of the list of items.

Your list of items is then sent to us where we carefully put together a competitive quote for you to review. If the quote falls within your budget and you wish to proceed with placing an order - just follow the instructions in the emailed quote. It’s all straight forward and so is the process of ordering your restaurant furniture.

Booths have been around for hundreds of years and the shape of a restaurant booths layout very much depended on the shape of the restaurant. Mind you, I don’t know if they called them restaurants 200-300 years ago. They still had booths, though.

If we talk about tradition, some go back to the sixties when booths were popular in roadhouses and the popular burger joints that teens hung out in. Even then, the layout much depended on the shape of the burger joint. You often had booths along a solid wall, low booths along windows, and bar stools at the counter.

Has anything changed? Country towns still have the traditional burger house. They don’t all have booths these days. Fast food chains often have a series of plastic booths, hard on the tail bone but easy to keep clean. Mid-range restaurants are taking to booths, especially with the range of modern designs and fabrics.

There is another reason why tradition plays such a small roll in a restaurant booths layout - and that is the generation gap. Those who enjoy sitting in booths to eat are generally under 30. They weren’t around when booths reached their height of popularity at the end of the 60’s. To this generation, there is no tradition. They either like what they see and feel comfortable, or they don’t. And typical of most people today - they simply vote with their feet.

Using lightweight table bases can certainly add a little flexibility to your restaurant tables layout. The heavier you make your tables, the harder they become to quickly move around, especially for one person. If you need more than one person to move tables, you are using valuable resources that could be better deployed elsewhere, like moving other tables.

Pictured is a resin pedestal base that weighs in at only 13lbs. That is certainly lightweight when you consider cast iron bases can weigh more than 30lbs on their own. You then have to add the table top weight - and some of them can be quite hefty too. Keeping that combined weight down is what makes a table flexible enough to be moved at will.

Resin can be a good choice if you need the flexibility of having tables either indoors or outdoors. Resin is easy to keep clean, is scratch and chip resistant and is tolerant of most weather conditions. It also looks good being available in eight different colors (metal green shown).

Today’s modern restaurant needs to be flexible in its restaurant tables layout. If you have a large group arrive that wants to dine together, you need to be able to move two or more tables together quickly. Having lightweight restaurant tables makes the task easy - even for one person, and means the tables can put together (and moved apart) quickly with little disturbance to other diners.

I don’t have to remind most people that we are in the middle of winter right now and it’s pretty darn cold. No one likes to eat while feeling cold so does your restaurant furniture layout take advantage of the warm spots in your restaurant? Or does it, like some restaurants I have been to recently, place diners in the path of cooling breezes (cooling in summer, chilling in winter)?

If I can get one message across to restaurant owners, it is this: look at your restaurant furniture layout from a diner’s perspective, not your own. You can stand in the kitchen and look across the dining room and feel everything looks great. Go and sit in all the chairs - then tell me if everything is great. What can you see; what can you hear; and what can you feel? All three are important questions and you need to address them.

Diners are affected by temperature. If they are too hot or too cold they will not return. Diners want to come and enjoy a meal and, generally speaking, the company of another person. They don’t want to be chilled nor do they want to be roasted.

Diners want to hear each other. Diners that cannot hear each other because of kitchen or air conditioning noise will also stay away. They want to be able to talk to each other without having to shout.

Diners want to feel comfortable. They don’t want to feel cold drafts nor do they want to feel others brushing past them to get to or from their tables.

Viewing your restaurant furniture layout from a diner’s perspective means you are putting their interests first - and so you should. They are, after all, the customers; the people paying the bills; and the people that are keeping your business in business.

Breathing a little life into your restaurant tables design can really give your restaurant a real lift in terms of color and effect. The table top shown is just one of many different pattern affects that you can choose from. I’ll accept that this particular style won’t suit everyone, but once you start digging around at the different patterns available, I am sure you will find one to suit.

Made from melamine, you will get years of wear out of one of these table tops. Melamine is one of the toughest and most enduring plastics as it’s scratch and stain resistant, easy to clean and is heat resistant. These table tops add some flexibility to your layout as they look good and are practical for both indoor and outdoor dining areas.

The pattern shown is the mosaic pattern. There are more than fifty other patterns to select from including rose marble, sea shell, catalan blue and desert sand to name a few. The table top comes in six sizes ranging from 18″ to 48″ in diameter. With a weight of only 15lbs they are easy to move around, particularly if they are attached to a lightweight table base.

Your restaurant tables design doesn’t have to be boring. Table tops that are sturdy and do the job are what diners find important. If there is a life and color, so much the better. As a restaurant owner, these restaurant table tops are amongst the best priced around - check them out for yourself.

Who determines the quality of restaurant furniture? It’s an interesting question and you are bound to get a hundred different responses from a hundred different people. I could use the ‘quality’ theory from the the 80’s which stated that ‘quality described any item that was fit to fulfill its purpose’. Using that theory, any chair that was capable of seating someone and didn’t collapse was a ‘quality’ piece of furniture.

We are little different to the business model of quality. Yes, having a restaurant chair that didn’t fall to pieces as soon as someone sat on it is important. Having lasted several years without falling to pieces from constant use is also important. For others, the raw materials that go into a product determine quality.

Restaurant furniture comes in many different shapes and sizes and is made from a whole range of raw materials, some natural and some man made. Because a chair costs $200 doesn’t make it any better in quality than a chair that costs $50. So is quality then in the eye of the beholder? In truth, it probably is. With that in mind, buying quality furniture must then come back to who your target market is.

Do you have a target market? For fast food outlets, their targets are those with not a lot to spend, who often buy to take out, or, if they eat in, are not really bothered if the restaurant furniture is teak or plastic. At the opposite end of the scale, if your clientele is upmarket, they would most likely resent plastic chairs and much prefer solid timber like teak. Quality is in the eye of the beholder. Know your target market and their expectations and buy restaurant furniture that they would consider to be quality - even if you don’t.

Keeping your restaurant chairs design simple is also part of the current trend in restaurant furniture. One of the most popular designs over the years has to be clean cut wooden chair similar to the one pictured. It has all the qualities of a timber chair, yet is not ostentatious and doesn’t look out of place.

This chair has an old school feel to it which lends itself to its name, the ECO Schoolhouse chair. Made from the environmentally friendly solid European beech wood, the chair comes with either a padded or unpadded seat. These chairs are rock solid and made to last. Because they don’t have any intricate designs they are easy to keep clean.

Restaurant patrons are looking for uncomplicated dining these days. Dining that is easy on the eye and easy on the pocket. These chairs certainly meet that, being one of the cheapest restaurant chairs on the market. As for looks, it is available in either dark mahogany or walnut with your choice of vinyl or fabric for the padded seat (if required).

The Seating Expert can have these restaurant chairs on your doorstep in as little as two weeks from date of order. If this restaurant chairs design is a little too plain for your liking, why not check out our online catalog. Our restaurant chairs catalog has almost 300 different designs to choose from, most offering opportunities for customization to fit in with your restaurant. Remember, keep it simple and your diners will keep coming back.

I guess the word elegant is one where the impression is in the eyes of the beholder. To that I say behold this - a restaurant booths design that is not only elegant, it is hard wearing, sturdy and would look great in a wide range of restaurants. Restaurant booths shrugged off the image of being cheap and plain, or cheap and gaudy, many years ago. You will even find booths in some of the classier restaurants around.

When you come across booths that include a feeling of luxury, you can see why some of the more upmarket restaurants still find room for a set of booths. Diners like them, they look good, and they can be used to fill that hard to fill area of your restaurant. This booth is a quilted tuft booth and also looks fabulous in jet black. Don’t like the black or the gold? There is a complete range of fabrics and colors available so you can custom design the finish of your booths.

Restaurant booths are no longer found only in cheap hamburger joints or roadhouses. Restaurant booths designs have exploded over the last decade and when you consider the range of shapes and sizes available, your ability to include them in your restaurant is becoming much easier. You pick the design you want, select the fabric and color and we can do all the rest. We will even provide you with a free no obligation quote prior to you ordering.

You may not be looking for elegance when it comes a restaurant booths design. If you are looking for more functional hard wearing look then check the range we have in our catalog at the Seating Expert. There are currently 28 different designs available, each customized when it comes to fabrics and colors.

It may be winter in some areas but other areas of the country are experiencing very pleasant conditions - in fact, ideal conditions for outdoor dining. This means the demand for outdoor furniture is still high. Imitation bamboo or wicker are popular choices at present. They incorporate the best of both worlds, good looks with all all weather durability.

The chair pictured is made from aluminum and has a powder coating that imitates a bamboo look. The seat is made using woven nylon. Made for commercial use, the chair is easy to clean and durable under all weather conditions.

All weather seating is important for outdoor dining. Furniture that isn’t all weather is susceptible to many problems, problems that can impact on your diners. Chairs and tables can become weak and collapse under use; chair cushions can become wet and, whilst appearing dry on the outside, leave your diners’ rear-end quite wet; fabrics themselves can also harbor mold and mildew if not cleaned properly.

The Seating Expert is where you will find a complete range of restaurant furniture. Furniture that ranges from the elegant through the chic to your basic. We also have in our catalog a wide range of outdoor furniture. If you find furniture that suits your needs, request a quote and we will be happy to provide one at no obligation. If you’re happy with the quote, you can submit your order online - it’s fast, it’s easy and it’s all hassle free.