You may be surprised to learn that a lot of customers pick their café of choice merely on the design and layout of it. Of course having decent food and nice tasting coffee are a major contributing factor in this choice, but the décor and café furniture can be the deciding factor. I personally agree with this as the café that I choose to drink in, I have chosen because I like the overall atmosphere. I like the traditional wooden chairs in dark wood and matching wooden tables that fit perfectly with the restored Tudor building.
Simplicity in café furniture is key to attracting customers. You don’t want the furniture to be to pretentious or too bland, and you want it to blend with the rest of the décor in the restaurant or café. Also you don’t want an over complicated design as people from all walks of life will want to use the café chairs including children who need to be able to mount and dismount easily.
Make sure that you café furniture is easy to clean. Your café tables and café chairs are likely to be used by a wide range of people and keeping it clean is hugely important. This is particularly applicable to hospitality furniture where the chairs and tables need to be cleaned regularly. A surprising number of germs and viruses can be spread through dirty café furniture.
Comfort is another factor that affects your cafes success. This is fairly self-explanatory, but you want to have café furniture that is ergonomic as the people that will be seated in the bistro chairs will be of different sizes and shapes , so having furniture that will accommodate this is important.
Finally you need to make sure that your furniture is robust and will last a long time, meaning that it is cost effective and is safe for all users.

This year’s Hotelympia in London’s Excel building saw furniture manufacturers of outdoor furniture, café furniture and a wide range of other products from food items to catering equipment, show there products to the trade and consumers. Being suppliers of café furniture we felt it was imperative to visit and see what these manufacturers had to offer.

One thing that was noticeable when looking around the trade show the amount of synthetic rattan furniture that was on the market. Rattan has always been used as outdoor furniture as it is strong and able to withstand heavy weather conditions, making it perfect for commercial and domestic use.

There was not only the standard synthetic rattan furniture available such as rattan chairs, but there also featured furniture items such as sun loungers, gazebos, sofas even day beds made from rattan furniture.

Other outdoor furniture such as plastic furniture was also on display. Much like rattan furniture, plastic chairs and plastic tables are available in a wide range of colours and can also withstand a wide range of weather conditions. One of the great things about plastic furniture is that it is easy clean and doesn’t fade over time in the sun.

Another product that seemed to be quite popular amongst the ranges of outdoor furniture was the Werzalit table tops. One major advantage to these is that they are suitable for use indoors and outdoors so you can create two spaces that match. Werzalit table tops are scratch and heat resistant to the point that you can stub a cigarette on them and they won’t mark. Available a huge range of colours and designs as well as bespoke logos, these table tops are a fantastic choice for any café or restaurant.

For more information on any of our outdoor products or to purchase, please click here.

There are so many ranges of café furniture including café tables and café chairs that you can be easily confused as to what type to buy. Café furniture is often the biggest investment you can make and you will always want some that will look great in your café/bistro as well as stand the test of time. A question that you firstly need to ask yourself is how you make use of the space you have. If you don’t include enough café tables and café chars then your business might suffer and you won’t get as many covers as you might be able to get. Have too many café tables and you will find that your restaurant is too crowded and the ambiance will be compromised.

If you have an outdoor area this can be equally challenging as you may find it not only hard to get the quantities of the café furniture right, but finding outdoor furniture that suits the décor of your café may be just as hard. We at Online Reality Ltd would recommend that you take a look at Werzalit table tops for your outdoor and indoor needs. The advantage of this is that you can match the tables inside your café with the outside without having to worry about your café table tops getting damaged by the outdoor elements.

Werzalit table tops are available in a wide range of finishes from solid colours and wood effect finishes to picture and custom made designs that can include your company logo. Werzalit table tops are not only built to withstand all weather conditions, they also have a joint less surface that is bonded to the core. The table tops are also scratch and heat resistant and are insensitive to hot cigarette ash. The tops are easy to clean and very hygienic as well as very robust, so if you are looking to furnish your café then we would recommend you take a look at these.

This chair is one of the most famous chairs within the café furniture industry. Manufactured originally by Thonet, it has also been named the bistro chair, which in the café furniture industry is quite a coveted title. Designed by Michael Thonet in the 19^th century using a unique steam-bending technology, also known as bentwood that during that time required years to perfect and master. It has a simple design and affordability it has been one of the bestselling chairs on the market, with a total of 50 million sold between 1860 and 1930 and since then the sales have kept on coming.

The chair has been made from six pieces of wood with a total of 10 screws to hold the cafe chair together with only 2 nuts. The wood is made from beech wood, that are heated to 100 degrees Celsius and pressed into cast-iron moulds. They are then dried at 70 degrees for just under a day to make sure that they are strong and robust. The reason that these bistro chairs were sold at an affordable price was because the materials used are cheap and the labour used are mainly unskilled.

This chair has been widely renowned as a design classic. When it was first produced it earned a gold medal in the 1867 World Exposition in Paris and has been praised by some of the worlds best and creative designers. For example Le Corbusier has been recorded in saying “Never was a better and more elegant design and a more precisely crafted and practical item created.”

In recent years, 2009 to be precise the chair was redesigned and remanufactured by the English designer James Irvine and retailed from Muji, a Japanese company. Roland Ohnacker, the managing director of Thonet stated that the aim of this was to “help 18 to 35 year olds enter the world of Thornet”

It is quite common to have a certain amount of hand luggage when entering a café. It comes as no surprise then that designer Kaman Tung has designed café furniture that actually holds luggage within the chair to avoid it becoming lost. This collection includes 3 café chairs and a café table that have a timber frame and finished in white plastic. These chairs have been specifically designed for outdoor public spaces, restaurant areas and cafes.

The idea for these café chairs and table came from the notion that people have the need to place their coats or luggage on the back of the chairs or on the floor. The idea is that with these chairs, it reduces the worry that items might be stolen and articles don’t have to be placed on a really dirty floor. For example, in bars and restaurants, it seems that we always put our coats on the back of our chairs. With this in mind, The Hanger Chair is one solution. The chair looks like a normal outdoor chair, however has a branch like feature that extends out over the back of the chair and provides a hanger for long coats and jackets. The reason for this is that many coats tend to be too long for the chairs back to hang on and can touch the dirty floor from time to time.

The Case Chair is for people who carry suitcases or laptops with them. There is a side compartment with this chair that can house a these precious items eliminating the worry that these could be stolen. Also with these items placed at the side of the person, it reduces the risk of the user forgetting them before they leave.

The table is a glass table that has a recessed area underneath the top that has been designed to house wallets and personal items that are designed to increase comfort when sitting down.

As outlined in previous articles, furniture whether it is café furniture, restaurant furniture, bistro furniture etc… is probably the biggest investment you are likely to make (apart from the premises) when opening up your business. It is important not only to ensure that the furniture matches your establishment’s décor but also is of high grade and is suitable for commercial use.

It tends to be that retail café furniture or restaurant furniture is cheaper than commercial furniture for a number of reasons, so you can see why a lot of companies, particularly during today’s climate, choose the cheaper option. If you do require furniture for commercial use then buying the right grade furniture is a must for a couple of reasons.

The first is that retail furniture tends to be for residential use. What I mean by this is that it doesn’t tend to be used for long periods of time. Commercial grade café furniture or restaurant furniture is used more frequently and gets more use as there tends to be a high turnover of people. Not only this, but the size and weight of people vary so it puts more stress on the café chairs or restaurant chairs. If you buy domestic furniture then these will tend not to last that long and you will probably find that you will be changing your restaurant furniture and outdoor furniture within a year, in particular the restaurant chairs.

The second reason for buying commercial furniture rather than retail is liability. Most furniture that has been built for commercial use comes with a liability warranty if someone has an accident due to the furniture breaking. Retail furniture does not have this with regards to commercial use and if you use domestic furniture in your establishment, if it breaks and someone is injured, you are liable if they take action against you.

The title of this blog may seem odd to your but in North America during the 19^th century, they actually did. Over the course of several years, trees were shaped until the shape resembled a chair then it was used, usually as a dining chair. Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec were fascinated by this concept and that’s how they came up with the Vegetal chair. Much like the plants and trees that it was originally designed on, the chair itself to a long time from the idea to manufacturing, 4 years to be precise.

The cafe chair itself is made from fibre-reinforced polyamide and has an irregular circle shape for the seat. The seat is made up of interweaving branches that are asymmetrical and random like the branches of a tree.

The chair can be an outdoor chair as it is made from polyamide; however will still look great as a café chair or dining chair. Not only this but the chairs are light weight so can be moved around easily and they are stackable chairs so they can be efficiently stored away.

It may seem like these chairs are actually made from a single mould, but you would be wrong. They have been carefully construct because due to its asymmetrical shape, it is very hard to judge how much weight it can take and the chairs true strength.

In the making process the brothers had a hard time creating the dining chair, firstly there were problems the structure, but once this was overcome, they then had problems with the comfort of the chair. The legs to the outdoor chair where also a problem as they needed to be integrated into the design of the chair as well as being strong. However after 4 years, the Vegetal chair was born.

It was the Eames brothers that first began experimenting with ply wood, and in particular how they can manipulate the wood to follow the contours of the body. You can see how successful they were with this by looking at some of the chairs that they designed over 50 years ago, that are still sold on the market today. A typical example of this is the Lounge chair originally crafted in 1956 and is a design that can still be seen around the world today. Even though this chair is heavily padded, you can see that detail of the frame and that it has been moulded into its unique design. It is not just domestic furniture that the Eames brothers were interested in. They also made café furniture and office furniture also.

It is no wonder then that these to extraordinary designers help to shape the way that we design furniture today. Designer Alfredo Haberli has obviously been inspired by the Eames brothers and you can see this in his latest creation, the Jill chair.

Is it a café chair or dining chair? The answer is both, the Jill chair has been designed to appeal to both commercial and domestic environments. The chair itself can be put alongside café tables or other restaurant furniture or can be used in a dining room; it will not look out of place. The chair comes in 3 different wood finishes, black beech, oak and walnut and also 5 different coloured frames as well. The frame itself has an intricate wire detail that can be resembled to the Wire chair by the Eames brothers. Not only has this but Alfredo has made use of state of the art plywood moulding technology to produce a contemporary and flexible wooden seat. All in all, this chair is a great modern piece of furniture inspired by the great Charles and Ray Eames.

When looking at refurbishing your café, a factor that most people think of when considering the furniture is how it will appear to their customers. It is important that the customers will be in a relaxed environment, with a soothing ambiance and a lot of this can be replicated by the type of furniture you choose. It is not only the décor that can affect the mood of the restaurant, but equally it is the furniture so obviously it is of the upmost importance that they work together. This may not mean that they have to necessarily match, they could contrast, but they must work well together.

Another factor that not many people may not of considered, is when planning their café environment is asking their employees about what they think. Most managers would be inclined to agree that keeping their staff content is one of the biggest factors in a successful business. It is almost if not as important as keeping your customers happy, as more often than not these are your customer’s first contact with the establishment and getting the right impression is key.

It can be quite beneficial in asking your staff what they think as they will and do spend most of the time on the front of house and know the place just as well as you do. They may be able to help advise you on what café tables and café chairs maybe best to suit your environment. They may also be able to help with the design and configuration of the restaurant, not only with the furniture indoors, but also outdoor furniture. They will be able to give you a good 2^nd opinion as this is the place they work. Not only this but it will help your staff to feel appreciated and feel like they are actually putting input into the place and which will give the a morale boost.

Changes in season are an influential time for restaurants and cafes. It does not just mean that the menus and food changes, but restaurant owners should think about the ambiance of the environment, perhaps even the café furniture or restaurant furniture. Patrons and regulars of restaurants tend to get bored quickly so updating the décor and feel of your restaurant/café/bistro is imperative for business. Much like the fashion industry restaurant furniture has different styles and trends that are dependent on the sentiment and the season.

When choosing your furniture it is important to think about the type of restaurant you are running and trying to replicate that feeling. For example if you are running a chinese restaurant, you don’t want the furniture or décor to look like you sell pub food. You will be surprised just how much the furniture will complement the restaurant, in regards to the overall experience. The reason for this is that it has been scientifically proven that taste is related to visual stimulation, so even if you have the most amazing gourmet cuisine, if you are serving it in a dark and dingy area, then the whole experience will be severely compromised.

What you need to remember that trends, even in the world of hospitality go in and out of style. It is therefore advisable, if you want to flow a trend, to make sure that you can adjust the style of the restaurant/dining area as cheaply and efficiently as possible. For example instead of changing the tables, why not think about changing the table cloths instead.

For the most part, you want to find furniture that you cannot date and will stay appealing not matter how much you want to change the décor. Aluminium chairs and aluminium tables are a good example of this. They can be used in all different types of cafes and restaurants as well as being used indoors and outdoors. Aluminium chairs are usually stackable and are light weight so can be used easily to change the configuration of your restaurant or bistro, whenever you need to. Also these chairs can be cleaned easily so they will last a long time and for a reasonable price as well.