Restaurant furniture has to provide you with the best of both worlds - somewhere comfortable to sit for an extended period of time, tables at the right height to serve food on, yet also a formal dining environment that's visually appealing too.
Throw in the need for your waiting staff to move easily around the dining area (without any droppages or spillages!) and choosing restaurant furniture can be more of a challenge than for many other environments where comfort alone is the primary concern.
Ergonomics
Customer comfort is always high on the agenda, but 'comfort' in restaurant furniture is an entirely different consideration to many other types of seating.
You need chairs that are either well padded and upholstered, or made of firm material but shaped to accommodate a seated person; good-quality restaurant furniture will generally be designed with at least one of these things in mind.
But also make sure your chairs and tables work well together - that they are at complementary heights to one another, and that the chair can be pulled close enough to the table to make the food easy to reach for adults and children alike.
Use of Space
Think about the types of tables you need - do you mostly cater for couples and small groups, or large party bookings? Do you need places for lone diners to eat without feeling conspicuous?
Is your dining area a formal, restaurant-style space, or a casual eat-in part of a takeaway, a separate segment within a pub or other venue where food can be served, or even a themed establishment like an American diner?
Plan for flexibility - have a standard seating plan, but be able to adapt to different bookings when the need arises.
That might mean making sure your tables are at the same height, so they can be pushed together to cater for larger parties without them feeling as though they are being seated and served separately.
Careful Clearance
Finally, leave plenty of space between tables for waiting staff and customers to pass without jostling diners; this also reduces the risk of a catastrophic spillage or dropped plate of food.
Straight-backed dining chairs are a great option if you're short on space, as they provide an ergonomic solution to avoid back-ache for diners during long meals, while leaving as much room as possible to pass behind them.