What To look For In Great Cafe Seating – Pretty vs Practical

Aside from the food and drink, choosing the right cafe seating is pretty high on the list of importance when it comes to the making or breaking of your business. Get it right and you’ll have customers queueing to sample your excellent food and drink – Get it wrong and no matter how great the selection of coffee and home-made cakes are – potential customers won’t even bother to come in.

Now we’ve stressed the important of getting your cafe furniture (in particular your seating) right – do you buy furniture because it looks good or do you buy it because it’s going to last? Alternatively, excuse the pun but maybe you can have your cake and eat it! Let’s take a look…

The pretty stuff

With the increasing amount of café’s opening up across Australia you need to be different. For this reason, don’t simply limit yourself to cafe chairs. These days seating comes in a wide variety of guises so it pays to think about Ottomans, booth seating, sofas, benches, and even beanbags, which are all making a comeback.

Think colour – The options are endless from retro chocolate browns and sage greens through to shocking pinks, sunburst yellows, and deep purples for that funky modern look.

Think design – It’s okay purchasing vibrant colourful seating but if it’s simply there to make a statement it usually doesn’t work. Instead cafe furniture works best when tied in to a definitive design. So either pick your seating based round a design or design your interior around your seating.

The practical stuff

Now we’ve done the pretty stuff let’s take a look at practicalities. Firstly it’s got to be comfortable. After all it might be the best looking chair in the world but if your customers don’t want to sit in it, you aren’t gong to have any customers to worry about anyway. So first rule of thumb – always try before you buy! If it’s good enough for you, it should be good enough for your customers.

Durability

All commercial grade furniture should be durable however some are more so than others but how can you tell? The answer – Make sure it’s AFRDI tested. Furniture that’s been tested by the Australian Furniture Research and Design Institute has been rigorously tested to within an inch of it’s life. It’s been dropped, it’s had weights placed upon it, it’s been closely inspected for safety concerns, and it’s had all sorts of food and drink spilt on it. Usually only those that pass all the tests get the AFRDI seal of approval. When you buy a cafe seating with AFRDI emblazoned on it, you just know it’s built to last.

Other practicalities

Does it stack easily? Is it waterproof? Is it weather resistant? Is it lightweight? Is it easily cleaned? These are all factors you might want to consider before parting with your hard-earned cash.

What about pretty and practical?

At Cafe Solutions we allow you to have the best of both world’s. We offer a wide range of commercial grade cafe furniture in a wide variety of colours designs and materials, but at the same time many of them carry the AFRDI seal of approval. To find out more contact us on (07) 3205 1616 or visit our website atwww.cafesolutions.com.au.