Polypropylene vs Wooden Chairs for Restaurant: Pros and Cons

Choosing chairs for your restaurant is different when compared to buying chairs for your home or residential spaces. It is critical for a restaurant because you want your customers to be comfortable and enjoy their meal. Fortunately, there are plenty of options in the market right now when it comes to the different types of chairs and materials used to manufacture them. This helps aspiring restaurant business owners to choose the most ideal chair for their commercial space, depending on the aesthetic and comfort level.

As mentioned above, there are plenty of materials that restaurant owners can choose from. However, there are two options that stand out from the rest: wooden and polypropylene chairs. How do you choose the right one? Below is a comprehensive guide on the information you need to know when choosing the best chairs for your restaurant.

Wooden Chairs

Let’s start things off with wooden chairs since they used to be the go-to option for the restaurant and café industry. Wooden chairs are popular because they suit a variety of aesthetic designs for many restaurants. The look of wooden furniture makes your space classy, rustic, and timeless. The organic element that wooden chairs add to your commercial space gives that warm and welcoming ambiance.

There are a variety of wooden chair materials that differ in look and quality. For example, there are different aesthetic qualities between teak, pine, and oak. Some wooden chairs have a dark quality to them while others are lighter in tone. In some cases, the wooden chair material is stained in order to create a unique appearance and to make the chairs blend seamlessly with the rest of the restaurant ambiance.

The wooden chair is also highly resilient. This is an important feature because chairs for commercial use are subject to lots of wear and tear. It must be able to sustain the damage of commercial use so that it would last a lifetime. You can use a number of protective finishes on the wooden chair to make them long-lasting.

On the flip side, there are some disadvantages to choosing wooden chairs for your restaurant. The cost of acquisition and production (if you want to have custom-made chairs for your restaurant) is higher than other materials, including plastic chairs. Wooden chairs are also high maintenance. Yes, they are resilient but it varies on the type of wood. Still, any wooden chair will require constant care and maintenance to make it last a long time.

If you choose to use painted wood for your restaurant, it becomes vulnerable to damage such as chipping. Once the paint chips, you need to retouch the painted finish in order to restore the appearance of the wooden chair. You need to do regular touchups every few years to keep them looking good.

You need to beware when buying commercial wooden chairs since most of these materials are not treated well. Therefore, they do not offer a high level of resistance against moisture. When the wooden material is exposed to moisture, it will discolor, warp, or crack. And you would not want any of that with your wooden chair for commercial use.

Lastly, and probably one of the major downsides to using wooden chairs for your restaurant, is that it is a heavy piece of furniture. Depending on the size of the chair, it will need one or two persons to carry them. It can be a challenge when you are storing those chairs every after use or when cleaning them.

Polypropylene Chairs

Polypropylene chair is another popular type of chair that is commonly used in restaurant and commercial settings. Polypropylene is a type of plastic that has increased in popularity over recent years. When it comes to choosing the best chairs for restaurant use, it joins wooden chairs as one of the top options.

Polypropylene chairs are known for their sturdiness. This might come as a surprise to many since plastic chairs are typically associated with low quality. However, polypropylene is a type of high-quality plastic material that is known for its durability. It won’t crack, warp, or dry out even when exposed to extreme weather conditions such as moisture or heat. This characteristic makes polypropylene chair the ideal choice for outdoor commercial spaces like the al fresco area of a restaurant or an outdoor café.

Most polypropylene chairs are also known to be quite sturdy. The ones that you can get from Maka Furniture have been tested for maximum load-bearing capacity. Therefore, it can withstand regular use and can support an excessive amounts of weight. There are certifications from Maka Furniture that will attest to the quality of the chairs as they had been tested for their quality and performance.

One of the most distinctive advantages that polypropylene chairs have over wooden chairs is their lightweight quality. While wooden chairs are extremely heavy, plastic chairs are lightweight and can be easily stacked. This makes them easy to move around whenever you want to change the layout of your restaurant. At the same time, stacking them saves space when storing them away when not in use.

Plastic chairs like the ones made of polypropylene material are also practical. They are more affordable than wooden chairs. It is an economical choice for commercial settings like restaurants so you won’t have to spend a lot of money on your restaurant seating furniture. It is the ideal choice for new entrepreneurs who have a limited budget to acquire the more expensive wooden chairs.

The only con is that the quality of plastic chairs is not the same. You have to be extra careful when choosing where you get your plastic chairs from as the quality of the manufacturing process is not standardized. At Maka Furniture, we take quality very seriously. We use only the best quality plastic materials and implement advanced manufacturing procedures. This is how you can trust that each piece of plastic chair that you get delivers quality, durability, and versatility.

In conclusion, the right choice of chair for your restaurant will depend on your budget and needs. Consider the pros and cons of each option to help you decide.