How comfortable are your chairs?

Friday, January 31, 2025

It’s perhaps a little thing. I mean, chairs are chairs. Right? But your chair selection makes a world of difference. When we opened our nationally acclaimed wine bar, we got these padded, comfortable swivel bar stools. I think they were from a big brand store that sold them as barstools for your basement bar. They really were comfortable and we thought that we had done a great thing because guest would rave about them. But what we discovered that they were too comfortable. Guest came and sat and were so comfortable that they didn’t leave. We had limited seating and so the fact that people stayed and extra hour sipping wine when they had finished their meals was affecting the bottom line. Our suspicions were confirmed when one of our good guests said “these stools are so comfortable that we never want to leave!” Lesson learned. We replaced them with non-swivel padded stools without a cushioned back. Our turn times at the bar went down by 35 minutes and we put more customers in the seats. One of our current restaurants have metal chairs that are all of the rage in the current design scenario. You’ve seen them in the modern cafes and coffee shops. All kinds of colors, stackable, and relatively inexpensive.

Great product…right? But if you have a finer dining experience where you want your guests to be comfortable while they enjoy their meal, those chairs are a bad idea. Is your demographic skew older than say 45 years old, then comfort when you sit is critical. And if your demographic is 60 and older, forget the metal chairs. We’re not interested. Take a look at your customers and the average turn time for a meal. How long do guests sit at the bar? Is your demographic Millennials or Boomers. Ten make a decision based on those factors. You want to maximize your seating while maintaining a level of comfort. It’s a bit of tightrope, but you’ll discover that with some thought towards the ultimate goal of providing the best dining experience possible, you’ll get there. And don’t base everything on the cost of seating. At our high end Jazz Club, our designer had chairs custom made for the lounge. They are aquamarine leather, they swivel, they are incredibly comfortable and make a statement. I’ll never forget when she told me that the manufacturer wanted $1000 a chair, but she got them for $950 each! Ouch! But the truth is, they are the perfect chair for what we are doing and worth every penny. Stackable metal chairs would have never worked.

The goal is for guests to sit and be comfortable while they enjoy the amazing dining experience that you provide. But not for too long. I always laugh about the early Starbucks concept where they had sofas and easy chairs and guests could grab a coffee and relax. But all of that comfort led to a great many guests who bought their coffee, grabbed a comfy chair, opened their laptop and proceeded to turn the space into their own personal office. I suspect that it was ok, with the amount of $8.00 Lattes that were marching out the door, but like your business, you’re not renting office space.

Do yourself a favor and have a meal at your restaurant. Sit at the bar, in the dining room, and on the patio. Sit in a patio chair when it’s 95 degrees out. Sit at the bar when it’s crowded. How do your chairs make you feel? Spend the money you need to make your concept complete. Then deliver an experience that will have your guests standing and applauding…on their way out the door.

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