Bentwood cafe chairs in a small room: sizes, weights and the arm chair trap

Ask anyone to sketch a cafe chair and most will draw a bentwood: a round seat, a back made of one long curve, thin legs with a ring below the seat. It is the shape people expect to find beside a marble two-top and a cup of something hot, and it suits a small room better than almost any other chair we sell.

But a shape is only a starting point. What matters at the counter is what the chair is made of today, what it weighs, how wide it sits at a small table and where it should not go. This guide reads our bentwood records the way a shopkeeper would, and leaves the romance to the menu.

What our bentwood chairs are made of

Every bentwood chair we list has a wood frame and a choice of seat: wood or padded vinyl. They are listed for indoor use, and they are light: every side chair in the group comes in at 10 pounds.

Measure the others by the Freya bentwood bistro chair. It is 16 inches wide, 21 1/2 deep and 34 3/4 high, lists a capacity of 400 pounds, and comes in mahogany, walnut, natural, black or white. Five finishes means you can pick one that sits with your counter, rather than one that only looks right online.

The Florence bentwood chair is the compact one. At 15 1/2 inches wide, 18 deep and 33 high, it is narrower than any other bentwood in our range, again at 10 pounds and 400 pounds of capacity. Several of the family, Florence among them, also offer optional nail trim in brass, nickel, pewter or natural finishes, a small detail that catches the light at a window table.

You will find the full group on our bentwood chairs page, and the vintage bistro furniture collection sets them beside the tables and stools that share the look.

Where the shape earns its place

A small room is where bentwood pays its way. The legs are thin and the back is open, so a room full of them still looks clear from the door. Light chairs move easily when you rearrange for a group of six.

Work it through at a 24-inch square two-top, the smallest table that seats two. Each guest has 24 inches of edge. A Florence at 15 1/2 inches leaves 8 1/2 inches of room beside it; a Freya at 16 leaves 8. Both slide in and out without catching a neighbor's chair. Now count depth. Florence is 3 1/2 inches shallower than Freya, so every chair backed onto a walkway stands that much further out of it. With chairs on both sides of one aisle, you win back 7 inches of passage for the person carrying plates.

Weight helps at close too. Sixteen bentwood chairs at 10 pounds each is 160 pounds to lift onto the tables before the mop goes round. The person closing alone will thank you.

The arm chair mistake

Here is the one to avoid. The Florence bentwood arm chair is a handsome chair, 24 inches wide, 20 deep and 30 high, at 13 pounds. Twenty-four inches is the whole width a guest gets at a table. Put two of them at a 24-inch two-top and the chairs are as wide as the table, arm against arm, with no room to pull out sideways.

Save the arm chair for the head of a longer table, a corner seat or the table by the window where one regular reads the paper every morning. Everywhere else, the side chair does the job in less room. Note that wood chairs with arms carry a 1 year warranty against defects, which is worth knowing when you weigh the arm chair against the side chair.

Keep it indoors

Bentwood chairs are listed for indoor use only. That is not a matter of taste. Indoor chairs with wood frames fade and swell when they live outside, and that exposure falls outside the warranty. If your shop puts tables out on the sidewalk in summer, give those tables chairs listed for patio use and keep the bentwood inside, where the bent frame stays dry.

Wipe them the way you would any finished wood: a damp cloth, then a dry one, and no harsh cleaner. The warranty on wood chairs is shorter than on metal, so treat the finish with some care. Our guide to wooden bistro chairs covers wood seats, finishes and the warranty periods in more detail.

The same curve at the counter

A bentwood room does not have to stop at the tables. The Floreale bentwood bar stool carries the curve up to a counter or ledge: 17 by 20 1/2 inches, 43 tall at the back, 15 pounds, with the same wood or padded vinyl seat and a capacity of 400 pounds. Its listing gives the overall height, not the seat, so ask us for the seat figure before you hold it against your counter.

Pairing the stools with the chairs keeps the room in one voice from the door to the till. The wider set of cafe chairs is under coffee shop chairs, and the rest of our wood frames are in wood chairs.

A small room set out in bentwood

Start with the tables. Our guide to the small bistro table works through tops and bases for a tight room, and the broader bistro chairs guide sets bentwood beside the metal and wood alternatives.

Then lay the floor out. In shop plans you can place Florence chairs at the two-tops, Freya at the four-tops and one arm chair at the window, and keep the finish with each line. Before the order goes in, ask for a wood finish sample through samples and set it on a chair by the counter for a few days. Walnut under morning light and walnut under the lamps at four o'clock are two different colors, and you want to have seen both. Then write the finish, the seat type and the vinyl color on the plan line, because finish and color lists change over time, and the chair you add next spring should match the ones already on the floor.