The right look can help beach-front cafes to fit into the landscape, but what are the best buying decisions when investing in new coastal cafe furniture?
Paler wood finishes are often popular for beach cafe furniture - the colour of light oak blends nicely with the beach and sand dunes, while giving an impression of being sun-bleached or weathered by the sea spray and salt air, and wood grain enhances this effect further.
If you don't want real wood, there are laminates and composites that offer a realistic wood grain finish, with the same choice of colours, and these offer the best of both worlds, combining a natural appearance with the performance of manmade materials.
Metallic or chrome legs - on chairs and on tables - complement the look of lighter wood perfectly, as well as being durable in a coastal environment in their own right, and together this makes for beach cafe furniture that will look good when new, and remain in good condition for a long time to come.
But there are also other things to think about when selecting coastal cafe furniture, including security when it is time to close up at the end of the day - or at the end of the season, if you are only open at certain times of year.
Many outdoor furniture designs allow for stacking, and this is true both of chairs and of some tables too, meaning your beach cafe furniture can be moved to a secure indoor location when you close up.
During opening hours, outdoor tables and chairs are typically designed with heavy pedestal feet or other hidden weights, helping to lower the centre of mass and increase the force needed to either knock or blow them over, or to have them skid along upright.
This doesn't make them impossible to move on purpose, by any means, but it should be enough to keep them in place against even a fairly strong sea breeze, particularly during the more settled periods of the year.
And again, with highly durable materials used throughout their construction, you can be more confident that any sudden strong gusts will not cause damage to your table edges if they do happen to blow out of position.