You are the owner or proprietor of a pub, bar, café, restaurant, sports club, hotel or similar. You are here because you are looking for furniture. Maybe you want to refresh your offering, to spruce things up. Or perhaps you are starting from scratch with empty premises and you’re looking for suggestions as to how to fill it with furniture that’s both stylish and functional. Whatever your requirements, this is your guide to the basics of buying furniture.
Why go commercial with your furniture?
Commercial-grade contract furniture is made to a higher standard than regular everyday stuff. It’s designed and built to withstand the rigours of everyday use in a busy environment: joints are screwed and glued, materials are hard-wearing. It’s also – by law – built to be fire-resistant. So: don’t cut corners. Go to a reputable supplier of high-quality contract furniture such as Trent Furniture.
A refreshing interior - tips for your business
If you run a pub or a bar, you can’t go wrong with classic pieces such as cast iron tables with solid wood tops, padded wooden stools and farmhouse chairs. But these days the mix-and-match approach is also becoming popular. You might want to refresh your interior by introducing more contemporary pieces, such as Trent Furniture’s Art Deco Pedestal table or Tall Squareback bar stool – these will add freshness to an interior, especially if they are in a lighter wood finish. There is no law that says pub furniture has to be dark! Likewise some flashes of metal – steel or chrome – will add a subtly contemporary look to your interior: Trent’s Dakota chrome bar stool (in small or tall) is smart, comfortable and unobtrusively modern.
Meanwhile, a leather sofa and a low table can transform a neglected corner of a pub into a sanctuary – a place where customers can sit back and linger.
As for restaurants: there are high-end restaurants that will undergo a complete refit every few years to stay ahead of the design curve. This is clearly beyond the budgets of most establishments. But, by following the long-term trends in restaurant furniture and decor, you can create an interior that’s smart and on-trend but which will not look dated in a couple of years’ time.
Furniture trends and shifts in styles
The biggest shift in restaurant interiors in recent years has been the move towards a mid-century modern look: simple, light-wood furniture, light fabrics, elegant designs. Our Warwick chair, made from solid beechwood, is a restaurant chair with a mid-century flavour that combines style with comfort, and comes in a choice of light or dark oak finishes. It’s also stackable, which can be a considerable advantage at a time when spaces are used flexibly.
Another enduring trend is shabby chic – a look at that emphasises natural materials and painted surfaces. The Shabby Chic farmhouse table combines a wooden surface with a white-painted frame and legs. This would look good alongside our Washington side chair in white with an upholstered seat pad. The advantage of shabby chic furniture is of course that it is meant to look a bit worn and shabby, so your furniture will actually improve as it ages!
A more traditional or conventional choice
If you prefer to opt for a look that is more “uniform” and conventional, there are many ways of achieving this. But it’s best not to try to squeeze in too many customers; if they or the waiting staff cannot make their way between tables without sidling along, squeezing or bumping into chairs or tables, then your restaurant is too crowded. Allow for a minimum of 45cm between tables – more, if yours is a fine dining restaurant.
A floor plan is of course essential, but be prepared to be flexible. If groups of customers arrive unexpectedly, a flexible arrangement means that you could shunt together several tables and chairs to accommodate them. Celebratory parties can likewise be accommodated by joining together a set of tables and chairs to form a long row.
And if you are thinking of buying upholstered furniture but are concerned about wear and tear and cleaning, bear in mind that today’s fabrics are durable and easy to clean, while the foam padding used in chairs such as our Abbruzzo range is non-sag.
Café styles to suit all needs
A café interior is one where you can let your imagination run more freely than in a pub or restaurant. Your customers will probably be staying for a relatively short time, so this is an environment where style can be emphasised more than comfort. And a mix-and-match approach can give your café an individual look that will help it to stand out from the crowd of high-street chains.
Chrome and bentwood chairs such as the sleek Remo chair can be combined with chrome pyramid tables or pedestal tables to create a bright, contemporary interior. Or a more traditional bistro-café look can be achieved with pieces from our range of bentwood furniture.
Remember, too, that with the rise in the self-employed and freelance workers, some of your customers will be using your café as a workspace. So, to make things easier for them, there should be free wi-fi with a well-publicised password, and there should be spaces where they can sit with a laptop and a coffee in comfort. Some cafés have actually banned laptops to prevent customers from hogging too much space, but most establishments prefer to encourage a customer base that is loyal.
Outside edge - expanding your outdoor furniture
For some years now, pubs and cafés have been expanding into their gardens, terraces and even pavements – driven by the arrival of outdoor space heaters and a trend towards a more continental style of eating and drinking. There was a time when outdoor furniture for pubs consisted of a scattering of battered picnic-style benches, but today’s outdoor furniture is stylish and durable – and often stackable, which means that it can be stored away during the winter months.
Likewise if you run a café that has a rear terrace area or if you are looking to place tables at the front, there are plenty of stylish options such as the Monaco wood-effect stacking chair, with metal frame and synthetic timber slats; or its Monaco wicker stacking chair, with a metal frame and wicker seat available in various finishes. These materials are fade- and water-resistant. These could be combined with an Alma aluminium table.
Buying or renting furniture?
If you are the owner or proprietor of a club such as a sports club, or premises which are hired out for events such as banquets and parties, you will be faced with a choice between hiring and buying furniture. One-off hires can seem relatively inexpensive, but over time the costs add up – so buying furniture could be the best option in the long term, especially if you host events regularly.
The initial outlay might seem hefty, but it could pay for itself within a couple of years. And innovations in stacking furniture mean that there are options galore for chairs and tables that can be stored away efficiently between functions. The Henley stacking chair is a classic design that’s ideal for wedding receptions and other functions, with a seat pad that is upholstered to order in a range of fabrics. With banqueting tables, appearance is less of a consideration as they will normally be covered with a tablecloth and table decorations, so a table such as a banquet folding table would do the job well.
And finally...
A word about the environment. These days, more than ever, we have to think about the impact on the environment of our choices as consumers and producers. Does furniture come from a sustainable source?
All of Trent Furniture’s wood comes from sustainable and properly managed sources. Its rubber wood table tops, for instance, are made from hardwood sourced from trees that have finished their useful lives in rubber plantations. And all of Trent Furniture’s waste products are recycled. So by choosing Trent Furniture, you can develop and grow your business - with a clear conscience.