Restaurant chairs for every room

A house rarely runs on one chair. The dining room wants one kind, the private room another, the terrace a third. These 467 chairs cover all of them, in wood, metal, aluminum and resin, with seats from vinyl to woven faux rattan. List your rooms and the covers each must seat, then shop one room at a time.

One venue, several chairs

Walk through the building before you open a single product. A restaurant with a bar, a private room and a terrace is four seating problems, and each one has a different answer on this page. Frames split mostly between metal, with 183, and wood, with 115. Aluminum accounts for 64 more, and 36 of those carry a wood-look finish. The seat is where the rooms part ways. Count the seats by cover and vinyl wins at 286, ahead of fabric at 205 and wood at 122.

A rough map, room by room:

• The main dining room: wood chairs or padded metal chairs, chosen for the length of the meal.
• The banquet or event room: stacking chairs and banquet chairs, counted by the largest seated event.
• The head of the table and the members' lounge: arm chairs.
• The terrace: chairs listed for patio use, gathered under outdoor chairs.
• A senior living dining hall: senior living chairs, where arms and seat height come first.
• Across from a booth: read our notes on chairs for the open side of a booth before you match the seat height.

Stack, arms or swivel

Stacking matters wherever a room changes during the week. Stackable listings number 191, and 111 of them say how many high. Arms show up on 118, each pair adding inches to the footprint, so check the width figure in the listing before deciding on six or eight around a long table. Four chairs swivel.

Seat heights cluster around 18 to 19 inches. Set beneath a dining top of 29 to 30 inches, a seat like that gives guests the thigh room nobody notices until it is missing.

Outside the dining room door

Patio use is listed on 124 chairs, and a further five are marked for a covered patio only. A wood frame or a padded seat left out in rain and sun will fade, swell or rust, damage our warranty leaves out, so those chairs stay inside however sheltered the terrace looks.

Single chairs run from $26 to $566. Build each room as its own plan in venue plans, with its count, its seat cover and its notes, and copy the plan when a second location opens.