Restaurant furniture built to measure

We have been making this kind of furniture since 2005 and deliver more than 50 complete orders a year, from a single bench in a small café to a whole restaurant room.

Restaurant sofa, bench seating or a bench along the wall

Guests call it a sofa, the architect calls it bench seating, and in enquiries that come from the web “furniture for a restaurant” is the most common. All three describe the same piece.

That is worth knowing when you compare two quotations. The word is sometimes the only difference between them, while the construction, the fabric and the price per metre are the same. With us everything is calculated per linear metre, whichever word appears in the enquiry.

How many seats you get along the wall

A table for four, with guests on a sofa along one side, takes from 1.2 to 1.5 linear metres. A room with five such tables along one wall therefore lands at roughly 6 to 7.2 metres.

A restaurateur is counting two things at once: how many people fit, and how long they stay. The two pull in opposite directions. A tight layout gives more seats but shorter visits, and shorter visits mean a smaller bill. A continuous sofa along the wall solves that differently from chairs, because it gives back the square metres chairs need in order to be pulled out.

The piece itself takes 70 cm in depth. That is the figure you subtract from the width of the room before you count space for tables and a passage for the waiter. The minimum order is one linear metre.

Seat height and table height decide comfort over a long meal

We set the seat 43 centimetres above the floor and the table top at 75. Those 32 centimetres decide whether the guest sits well through the main course or ends up leaning on their elbows.

The back angle is gentler than in a bar. In a restaurant people stay seated, and the back needs support, not just something to lean against for a quarter of an hour.

Three models for the restaurant room and what they cost

These are the three models that most often end up in a restaurant.

All three are 70 cm deep with the seat at 43 cm. PARIS and NICEA cost the same, so the choice between them is a matter of looks: vertical channels against a smooth back. The step up to PARIS MAX comes purely from the amount of material and the taller back structure, not from the workmanship.

How long it takes to get restaurant sofas

The lead time is four to six weeks, counted from the moment payment is registered. Before production we ask for at least 50 % of the order value against a proforma invoice, and the clock starts with that payment.

PARIS in black, in the standard 1.2 linear metre size, has fast delivery: up to three working days plus freight. Whether we make your exact date depends on how full that week is. Call and we will tell you straight away: 968 27 586.

In a restaurant the fabric works against grease, not only against wear

A sauce stain and a spilt glass of wine come off velour and off faux leather in different ways. So we look at more than abrasion resistance when the fabric is chosen for a restaurant, even though abrasion counts too: none of the fabrics we propose for serving venues sits below 40 000 Martindale cycles, and most pass 100 000.

We send fabric samples within one to two working days after the call, picked out for your venue. That way you can try a stain on a piece of fabric with your own cleaning product before you commit to the whole room. We also have fabrics with various certificates, depending on what the venue requires.

A sofa along the wall calms the room

Sound thrown back from stone, glass and concrete shortens a visit just as effectively as an uncomfortable chair. At full occupancy it can drown out the conversation at your own table.

An upholstered back surface absorbs part of that sound. A continuous run along the wall therefore works as an acoustic panel that happens to be furniture. The taller the back, the larger the surface doing that work, which is why PARIS MAX performs better than the lower models in rooms with hard surfaces.

How we split the piece into modules

A long run is assembled from modules, otherwise it would never get into the venue. The standard lengths are 1 metre and 1.2 metres, and the maximum we recommend is 1.4 linear metres.

At those sizes the modules pass through ordinary doors and stairwells, and the joints end up where they do not show. If the furniture has to go up to the first floor, this is usually the only constraint that really shapes the construction. Corner elements are measured along the outside of the back and fall under the same price per metre as a straight run.

You do not need to order assembly. The furniture is drawn so that it is not necessary, so you are not paying for a team on site. We will still assemble it for you if you want us to.

A restaurant rarely buys one sofa

It is usually the whole room: several runs of different lengths, chairs at the free standing tables and bar stools at the counter. We draw it as one order and one colour scheme, not as separate purchases that happen to stand in the same room.

Table tops we pick from AMA 80 and AMA 100 or from the small tables PU LAM 60, 70 and 80. Chairs and tables we make in 7 to 14 working days, faster than a sofa sewn to measure. Finished chairs wait in our warehouse until the sofa is ready, and the whole set travels on one transport. That way you do not pay for two deliveries, and you avoid storing chairs yourself in the weeks before opening.

Restaurant sofas in real rooms

At House of Hot Pot & BBQ in Poznań we made PARIS in two shapes: straight along the walls and half round about a circular table, so that every guest sits the same distance from the plate.

At Restbotanica in Katowice we did not start with the catalogue. First we sent fabric samples and prototypes, so the owners could see them in the finished room before deciding. Production of PARIS to measure, and of the curved version, only started once the prototype had been approved.

At Krzywy Domek in Sopot the same model followed the curve of the wall, and that curve we measured on site before production.

What we need in order to quote

Give us the length of the wall, the width of the room and how many seats you are aiming for. If you have a floor plan, send it. If you do not, a photo with measurements written on it will do.

An order starts with measuring, either at your place or from the drawing you send. The quotation is free and without obligation: 968 27 586.