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How Can I choose the right table tops?

It’s important to choose the right table tops when purchasing your tables, this means not only the right finish and style but the right size too.

If you aren’t sure what table tops you should be buying then  this handy guide is a great starting point for discovering the answer to ‘ Which table tops are right for me?’

So what should you be considering when buying table tops? Read on for our top advice for choosing table tops...

SIZE

Arguably, one of the most important things to consider is the size of your table tops and before you even look at materials, finishes, colours you should be asking yourself the question: what size tops do I need? This will depend on not only your target customers but how many covers you want to fit into the space and also what sort of menu you will be serving. Depending on the style of food and drinks, you may have multiple dishes, cutlery baskets, condiments and glassware that need to be accommodated when people are dining. Make sure you allow adequate room for all this as well as for the customer to dine sit comfortably. Choosing a top in a square size can be a great way to ensure you can cater for different group sizes and events as they take up minimum space, can accommodate two people if need be but can equally seat 4 or 6 when pushed together to create a larger table.

Take a look at our handy table top size guide here for more details table top dimensions and numbers that can be seated:

MATERIAL

Solid, veneered, melamine, laminate, plywood- the options are endless so how do you know which table top is right for you?

Firstly, the type of finish is less important than making sure that your tops are described as suitable for commercial environments. Table tops that you would buy for domestic use simply won’t withstand the demands of a busy contract environment, you need something much more hardwearing and durable.

So what is the different between the different types of table tops? The main difference between a solid finish and the others on offer is that the solid is a hardwood whereas the veneers and melamine are typically an MDF or other particleboard surrounded by either a melamine face or another form of protective coating such as polyurethane lacquer. Some people hear the phrase particleboard or MDF and have misconceptions about their suitability or durability but they are in fact  an excellent choice because they offer the look of a wooden top, but with an extremely durable finish and all at a fraction of the price of solid oak or pine tops.

Take a look at more detailed descriptions of table finishes here

COLOUR

Once you know what size and finish table tops you want, you might begin to ask yourself ‘How do I choose the right colour table top’? This is a tricky question to as this really is down to the décor and other furnishings that you have. Some customers like to match up the table top colours with the flooring and permanent fixtures such as the bar panelling and bench seating whereas others prefer a complete contrast or varied wood colours in a more of a ‘mix and match’ theme. Our wood tops come in three standard colours; dark oak, light oak and walnut. The darker woods are perfect for creating depth and character, whereas the light oak can open up an area and brighten up a space with limited natural light or small spaces. Perhaps consider a lighter wood for your table tops if this is the case so as not to enclose the space further.

HEAT RESISTANCE

Do I need heat resistant table tops?

We get asked lots of questions about the heat resistance of table tops and the answer is generally always the same whatever the finish and whatever the environment they are going to be used in.

When it comes to wooden table tops, whether they be solid hardwood, veneer, melamine or laminate, although they will be able to withstand warm plates and hot drinks to a certain extent, the bottom line is if it’s too hot to hold in your hands then it’s too hot for the table surface. Wooden tops are hardwearing and durable but they are wooden none the less and will mark if something too hot is put on them. If you don’t want to use table cloths with your tables its worth using place settings to protect the tops from marks and scuffs.

MAINTENANCE

Another consideration is the maintenance and cleaning of your table tops. Solid oak table tops may require more maintenance as they will need to be treated to make them suitable for commercial use and avoid marks or stains from regular use. You may need to do this every couple of years depending on the wear and tear they experience. Something like a hardwood with a polyurethane coating, veneer, melamine or laminate finish require much less maintenance as well as being easy to clean and available in a choice of sizes and colours. Table tops with a clear lacquer give a perfectly flat and smooth surface that is easy to wipe and will remain looking its best for years to come if looked after correctly.

Most people want to know which table tops are easiest to clean as well as the time old questions ‘How do I clean my table tops’ and ‘What should I use to clean my table tops?’

The first thing to know is DO NOT use antibacterial sprays and standard kitchen surface cleaners on your tables. There is a tendency for the ingredients in these to react with the lacquered wood and you may even find that over time a sticky residue builds up causing the table top to feel tacky to the touch, a patchy appearance as a result. You wouldn’t use anti-bacterial on a polished wood surface elsewhere and wooden table tops for contract use are no different. The best way to clean table tops between customers, during service or at the end of service is using warm soapy water or a specialised cleaner such as ‘Relay Spray’. This is cleaning solution available in easy to use spray bottled and has been specifically developed with anti-bacterial properties that won’t react with the lacquers and are designed for use in the hospitality industry.

Britain is a nation of sports lovers. Football, rugby, cricket, boxing, tennis, F1, golf - you name it and you’ll never be too far from a fan. Even sports that aren’t widely adopted here such as American football have amassed a large following in recent years.

More often than not, big sporting events equal a trip to the pub with friends and family. That way, fans can celebrate or commiserate together and where better to do it than at the local pub?

For operators, these sporting events are a big opportunity to attract some extra revenue. For those of you who aren’t sports fans or have never use your facilities to host a screening of a sporting event, the thought of attracting masses of sports fans to your pub or bar can be quite daunting. To help, we’ve created this guide that will help you to plan and prepare your bar or pub sporting event and advise you on the biggest sporting events to look out for. 

Different types of sporting events...

Annual events:

• Super Bowl
• FA Cup final 
• Wimbledon
• Six Nations
• The Masters

Special events: 

• Football World Cup
• Rugby World Cup 
• Euros
• The Ashes
• Olympics
• Boxing 

Seasonal events:

• Premier League
• Champions League
• Premiership Rugby

How you prepare for each type of event will vary.  It would be strange for your venue to go mad and over-promote a generic Premier League match. It’s the one-off events like the Super Bowl or FA Cup final where it is expected that you push the boat out in terms of promotions and offerings.  

Keep an eye on the successes of your local teams too. Should your local football team reach a final in their respective competition, you want to make sure you the fans know they can watch it in your establishment alongside other fans. 

Creating a detailed plan

Organising a showing of a large sporting event is no easy task, so having a detailed plan in place will make sure everything runs as you envisage. For each sporting event, your plan should include promotions, expected capacity, whether it should be a ticketed event, type of furniture layout, number of staff needed and the publicity required. 

The details of your plan will ultimately depend on the size of the sport‘s following, the amount of hype surrounding the event as well as the date and time it is happening. For example, to celebrate Wimbledon, your pub or bar might have an offer on Pimms and strawberries. Wimbledon is a very family-orientated tournament so the types of activities and offerings should attract all ages. 

Comparatively, the Super Bowl is an annual event that runs in the early hours of the morning in the UK so the demographic for such an event is different. There are endless amounts of ideas to americanise interiors and the draw of the Super Bowl is more than just the match. Themed food and drink and a lively atmosphere is what operators must strive for to make a success of the Super Bowl.  

Do you have a suitable event location?

It goes without saying that pubs and bars need a suitable amount of television screens to cope with the amount of punters expected. TV screens could be dotted around the venue or there could be a large projector screen for customers to base themselves around. There are benefits with each and the decision for either will be much based on the layout of your bar or pub. 

Equally important as being able to see a screen is having enough room for customers to sit, stand and put down their drinks.  

Depending on the time of the year, the options available to you may be different. For late spring and summer sporting events, you might be tempted to have a large screen projector placed in your outdoor space for viewers to gather around. Summer sporting events where this would work particularly well include Wimbledon, the World Cups and The Ashes, when it is held in England. 

Remember that not all of your customers will be interested in the sporting action. They might have even come to your pub or bar to escape from the event. If your bar, pub or club does have a separate room, consider using this space to cover other visitors’ needs. It’s always wise to have at least one area where people can talk and drink in peace.

Sporting events furniture layout

To plan how you want to lay out the furniture in your pub or bar, you need to think about the demographic you are targeting for the sporting event in question. 

Owners can influence the atmosphere and type of clientele simply by the way furniture is laid out. Rows of stackable chairs with no tables and standing room at the back will create a more boisterous and rowdy environment as customers’ sole attention will be on the screen and they’ll all be watching it together. By setting out chairs with tables separately, the atmosphere will be more sedate as customers will be watching in their own groups instead of a collective. 

If outdoor space is available, it provides a more flexible approach. Customers can fill space as they choose with stackable chairs, picnic blankets, pub benches or sitting or standing on the grass. 

Whatever layout you choose, the most important thing is ensuring your customers are comfortable. Some sporting events last hours, so the comfort of the environment is paramount to ensure that enough people stay for the duration. Having sufficient seating is often the root of the problem. We find that sports bars and pubs who  host sporting events regularly prefer to opt for space saving or stackable bar tables and stools when adding additional furniture to a bar area or outside seating area to accommodate extra guests.

Upcoming sporting events

2018 is set to be a great year for sports fans, with the 2018 FIFA World Cup the biggest event on the calendar.

The World Cup this year takes place in Russia from June 14th to July 15th. England is the only home nation to make it to the competition and as always there will be much anticipation about their matches. The matches that operators need to focus on are all the England games, the opening fixture, the semi-finals and the final. Read our guide pub guide to the 2018 world cup.

Sporting event furniture

Whether you’re looking for stackable furniture, outdoor furniture or a cheap option for you to maximise the amount of seats available, Trent Furniture has a range of furniture that will help you to host sports events. 

When furnishing or designing any hospitality venue, whether it be a bar, restaurant or café, bar stools are an essential piece of the puzzle. Their versatility means that they can be placed along a window looking out of a café or arranged around poseur tables in a pub or bar. 

The uses of bar stools are endless but they ultimately ensure that you can fit adequate seating into your space by filling difficult areas. As you’d expect, bar stools come in a range of different styles, materials, fabrics, sizes and prices.

To help you on your hunt for the right bar stools, we’ve explained the main areas you should consider:

How tall should bar stools be?

To understand what height your bar stool should be, you first need to measure the height of the table or bar that the stools will be propped against. 

As a general rule, if the counter is 40-42 inches in height, the bar stool should be 30 inches for the optimum comfort of the customer. If your table is slightly taller, around 45-48 inches high, the bar stool will need to be around 34 inches. For counters that are around 36 inches high, you will need a counter stool that is 24-26 inches.  

Ensure that the seat is tall enough for the customer’s chest to be positioned above the table but not so high that their knees are touching the table’s underside. 

How many bar stools do I need?

Much like the question of height, the number of stools that should be ordered is a common concern for restaurant and bar owners. An industry standard is that 21-25 inches should be allowed for each stool. That means if you have a counter that is 155 inches in length, you could fit seven bar stools. This should provide adequate space for customers without them feeling confined and constricted. 

If you are purchasing bar stools with arm rests or stools that swivel, add a couple of extra inches to either side. 

Should bar stools be backless or with a back?

The main division between two stools of the same height is whether or not there is a back rest. If the only difference between the two is that one has a backrest and the other doesn’t, which do you go for? Each has its own benefits. 

Backless bar stools tend to look more refined and are a better choice where space is at a premium, however bar stools with backs tend to be considered a better option for comfort. Your decision should come down to what their purpose is. If the chair is going to be used for long periods of time, perhaps to have a meal on, then a backrest is probably wise. But if they will be sat on whilst a customer quickly sips down their coffee in a small coffee shop, backless would be preferable. 

What are the most popular bar stools for sale?

At Trent Furniture, we believe that bar stools should be practical, stylish, comfortable and affordable. That’s why all of our bar stool selection fits with these four criteria. Here are a couple of our most popular bar stools: 

For pubs, it’s hard to look beyond the tall dark oak brass rail stool that comes as a hard top, button top or piped top. The traditional style will look the part at most country pubs and can be tailored to your chose of material and colour. 

The tall finback armchair is ideal for traditional or modern interiors. The bentwood design is a restaurant staple style but this stool could equally be used in pubs and bars.  

The Verona bar stool is a stylish and contemporary brown faux finish bar stool. Its appearance and comfort make it the perfect addition to any pub, bar, café or restaurant where high level seating is required.

Top tips for buying your next bar stools

We have been supplying bar stools to pubs, bars, cafes, restaurants and hotels for over 50 years and our ever expanding range of stools makes it easy to find the right style and price to suit your interior and budget. Choose from our wide range of quality contemporary and traditional bar stools in a variety of finishes and colours and buy with confidence from Trent Furniture.

Have you heard the good news? It has been announced that pubs and bars across the country will have an extended license across the weekend of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s royal wedding. What makes the news even more exciting is when you realise that the wedding falls on the same weekend as the 2018 FA Cup Final.

The two events combined present a fantastic opportunity for pubs and bars to get punters through their doors. With entertainment on all the way through Saturday 19th May, this shouldn’t be too hard to do.

What does an extended license mean to pubs and bars?

Pubs, bars and other licensed premises will be allowed to keep serving alcohol until 1am the following morning instead of the usual 11pm. This green light will be given on the nights of Friday 18th May and Saturday 19th May.

So, with an extended license, pubs and bars will be able to get some extra revenue that weekend. A royal wedding is always a big deal but considering the date of Prince Harry and Meghan's marriage coincides with the FA Cup final, there will be double celebrations for fans of football and royalty

The extra hours will allow the nation to celebrate and raise a glass the new couple.

What time is the royal wedding and FA Cup final on? 

Saturday 19th May is looking to be a busy day for pubs and bars. Residents and tourists alike will be pouring into your establishments to get a look at the events on the big screen. Here are the timings of the two events:

Enjoying the Royal wedding at a bar

Kensington Palace has announced that the wedding service will begin at 12pm, with a carriage procession through Windsor happening at 1pm. Just like Charles and Diana, and William and Kate, the royal wedding will be televised so all news stations will be there to broadcast.

Celebrating the 2018 FA Cup Final at a pub

As the celebrations of the royal wedding begin to wind down, it will be time for the build-up to the 2018 FA Cup final. The FA Cup final is broadcast live on both the BBC and BT Sport. Although a kick-off time hasn’t yet been confirmed, in past years it has been 5:30pm meaning a likely start for the coverage will be around 4pm. 

Once finished, it’s celebration time. A royal wedding and an entertaining football match with friends and family means Saturday night will be music to the ears of pub and bar owners. 

As you’ve been granted a longer window frame to make the most of the events, it’s now up to you to make the most of it. 

Practical pub and bar furniture for events

For this event-packed day, everyone will be vying for the best spot to watch the action. Of course you will be need a TV. If you have a projected large screen, you might feel more inclined to create rows of stackable chairs, while if you have numerous screens around the venue, you might settle for scattering some additional stools and chairs around tables. 

For pubs and bars it is set to be a very busy weekend. We always recommend that pubs and bars have an extra supply of stackable furniture for special event days such as this. 

Get your pub or bar prepared and browse our range of stacking chairs. These can be easily stored away and the majority are available in a range of fabrics to match with your current theme.

It’s a classic chair whose origins have been lost in the mists of time. But what we do know about the Windsor chair is that people have been making them for more than 300 years. Some stories suggest that King George – the tales vary between Georges I, II and III – was visiting the home of some of his humble subjects and was offered a seat in a very comfortable wooden chair. He liked the chair so much, he had the design replicated and made for use in Windsor Castle.

Another, perhaps more plausible, story says that the chair became popular because of changes in the design of English gardens. In the mid-18th century, garden designers such as Capability Brown were turning away from the rigidly formal geometric designs of French gardens and adopting a more naturalistic, landscaped approach. This coincided with – and perhaps contributed to – a move towards using gardens as a place to sit and socialise and entertain guests. Furniture that was strong but light and portable was needed, and the Windsor chair was ideal. 

What is a Windsor chair?

But what is a Windsor chair? What makes it different from other chair designs? The main difference is that the Windsor chair’s legs are not connected to the spindles at the back. It is essentially a stool, with back spindles attached. The seat is made from a solid piece of wood, with legs attached. The back spindles form a comfortable backrest which comes in various arrangements; in some Windsor chairs, the spindles form a high back with arm rests, others have a bowback design. Some designs feature a back splat – a wider piece of wood in the centre of the chair back, featuring decorative designs such as a carved wheel or the Prince of Wales’s three-feather motif. Others have spindles all the way round. 

Many furniture historians believe that the Windsor chair was originally called a “Forest” chair, because it came from the Forest of Windsor, where they were made in small workshops; from there, they could be easily transported to London for sale. The earliest example of a Windsor chair that can be attributed to a particular manufacturer was made by John Pitt of Slough, which at the time (the early 18th century) was part of Windsor. It was made from cherrywood, with an elm seat. 

The chairs were traditionally made from two or three types of wood: elm for the seat, with the spindles and legs being made from woods such as ash, cherry or beech. Different parts of the chair were made by different craftsmen, including wheelwrights, who used their specialist skills to make the spindles, and “bodgers” – wood-turners who, despite their name, were actually highly skilled. Steam-bending was used to create the characteristic “bow” of the chair’s back.

A chair for America

These basic designs have given rise to regional and national variations. In the 19th century, many chairs were made in Lancashire, while the area around the Chiltern Hills north-west of London became a centre of production (this was where the bodgers used to ply their trade, and presumably the beech forests provided an abundant supply of wood). Chairs made in the Suffolk village of Mendlesham were distinguished by their square backs.

The chair was taken to America, where it became hugely popular – it has been said that when the American Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, many of those present were seated on Windsor chairs. . A drawing from the 18th century shows Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States, seated on a Windsor chair. And a 1772 painting by American artist William Williams, “The Williams Family With Dog”, shows the distinguished-looking Mr Williams seated on a Windsor chair .

The Windsor chair - A pub classic

Early Windsor chairs were painted green to match the outdoor settings where they were to be used, but later examples were stained or varnished. As time went on, Windsor chairs became popular for indoor use – especially in inns and taverns, where their robust and comfortable design was ideal for drinkers and diners. They were also portable enough to be moved around, or moved aside for cleaning. Today the Windsor chair is still widely used in pubs and restaurants, in particular the bow-back design with a decorative splat.

Trent Furniture’s Wheelback chair is a classic Windsor side chair with a wheel design on the back, made from European beechwood in a dark oak finish. It is available with a solid seat or an upholstered seat. The spindles behind the Wheelback chair’s backrest are a typical Windsor chair feature, giving the chair extra strength. Trent Furniture’s Spindleback chair is a simple, elegant variation on the Windsor chair design.

The English furniture maker Ercol has long been a champion of the Windsor chair. Since the 1920s the Windsor has been part of Ercol’s identity, and now a whole range of Ercol Windsor furniture is available. And there’s a satisfying link going back to the chair’s origins – Ercol’s factory at Princes Risborough nestles at the base of the Chiltern Hills, where the bodgers of the 18th century used to ply their trade.

And today, it’s possible for Windsor chair enthusiasts to follow in the footsteps of those bodgers and furniture-makers of the 18th century and make their own Windsor chair. James Mursell runs five-day residential courses at his farm in West Sussex. No previous experience is necessary, but at the same time Mursell says that experienced woodworkers will be fully challenged. A maximum of eight people will attend each course, ensuring that everyone gets plenty of individual attention. 

Sitting on a piece of history

If you run a pub, bar or restaurant, it’s likely that Ercol’s Windsor chairs would be prohibitively expensive to purchase in large quantities, while making your own chairs in any numbers is clearly impractical. And antique and vintage chairs, though often beautiful pieces, are frequently expensive and not always robust enough for commercial use.

So your best option is to buy from a reliable supplier such as Trent Furniture, whose chairs (and other furniture items) are built to withstand the rigours of regular use in a busy commercial environment. They may not know it, but your customers will be sitting on a fascinating piece of English history