As the UK comes out of lockdown, social distancing measures are likely to remain in place for many months to come.
This is especially true in enclosed areas where people from different households meet - such as pubs, bars and restaurants.
We have already seen the two-metre rule reduced to 'one metre plus', which allows individuals to come closer together if other mitigation measures are used.
For bars and pubs, booth seating offers one way to achieve the seemingly impossible goal of bringing people together while keeping them apart.
If you serve American-inspired food like burgers and hot dogs, consider our American Diner Bench as an easy way to create a distinctive visual while adding socially distant seating to your bar.
Why booth seating?
Booth seating automatically achieves some of the requirements of good social distancing in pubs and bars.
For example, it clearly defines seating areas, allowing you to ensure different groups of customers stay more than the minimum distance apart.
It's difficult for customers to move, so there's less risk of people putting themselves where they shouldn't be, but it can be reconfigured by the owner or manager to adjust to any future changes in social distancing rules.
And it's easy to clean - booth seating tends to have large, flat surfaces, so the whole booth can be sanitised after each group of customers leaves, ready for whoever comes next.
Our Berwick Buttoned Back Bench is a great example of this, with a faux leather finish that can be sanitised in seconds and dries quickly.
Booth seating plus
There are additional measures you can take to improve COVID-safety in booths even further.
A physical barrier between booths is one way to do this. It could be an opaque screen, or a clear plastic barrier like those used in banks and supermarkets.
You might choose to provide alcohol hand gel so customers can regularly clean their hands - remember, it's likely you'll need to control how many people can use your toilets at any one time, which reduces the opportunity for people to wash their hands with soap and water.
And you could ask people to avoid facing each other directly over the table. Booth seating already does this well between different groups, as it's naturally inward facing.
Free-standing bench seating
Our free-standing bench seating means you can easily define booth seating areas, but reposition benches as necessary when social distancing rules change.
This is also ideal if you take group bookings, as individuals from the same household (or support bubble) can sit closer together than those from different homes.
In addition to our American Diner Bench seating mentioned above, we also have American Diner Two-Seater Chairs in traditional red and cream faux leather, or in black and white.
Having some of these on-hand is a great idea as they're a little easier to move, so your booth layout is even more flexible and ready to adapt to different bookings without putting social distancing at risk during other opening times.