Custom restaurant furniture that survives service

A dining chair at home might be moved a few times a day. In a restaurant, the same chair is dragged, stacked, leaned on and knocked into, many times a day, every day. Furniture for hospitality has to be built for that from the first drawing.

For Stephen Lasker, the first thing that separates hospitality furniture from residential is the hardiness of the finish. It has to take a beating, from spills, cleaning products and constant contact, and still look right months later.

The second is how a piece is put together. Glue and nails will hold for a while. Under daily restaurant use, they loosen. Joints need to be properly engineered so the piece stays solid after thousands of services.

“One cannot cut corners on hospitality,” Stephen says. If a quote looks too good to be true, it usually means the furniture has no longevity built in, and you will be replacing it far sooner than you planned. The cheaper order often ends up being the more expensive one.

We once shipped the furniture for an entire restaurant to Abu Dhabi. On a Friday the client wrote that everything was unpacked and in the room, ready to be placed the following week.

On Monday, three of the 48 chairs had cracked. They had been fine on Friday. Stephen asked one question: had the air conditioning been running all weekend? It had. His read was that the jump from weeks in a humid container and port straight into a cold, air-conditioned room was too much for the wood, even though it had been tested as properly dried.

He sent six more chairs at no charge, in case more gave way. None did. Years later, the client has not reported a single further issue.

We have designed and made furniture for restaurant groups in Abu Dhabi and Bali, and for boutique hotels. Tell us about your space and how many covers you run.