Seating for the room where everyone eats: dining height chairs like the Marlow Bistro Chair and the Turin with its black frame and fabric seat, the stacking Nest Edge and Nest Loop, and high stools including the Stowe, the Hepscott, the Charford and the Brayford. Canteen chairs take more punishment than almost any other seat in a building. They get wiped twice a day, dragged across hard floors and sat on sideways, so choose for the frame and the finish first, then worry about how it looks beside your canteen and breakout tables.
Choosing a canteen chair
Start with the table height you already have. A standard canteen table sits at roughly 730mm, which wants a dining height chair with a seat around 450mm, so the Marlow, the Turin and the Nest chairs all suit. Poseur and high tables sit near 1050mm and need a stool with a proper footrest, which is where the Charford, the Brayford and the Hepscott come in. Mixing both heights in one room works better than picking one: high stools along a window ledge or a bistro table keep quick coffee breaks moving, while dining height seats hold the people who are there for the full half hour.
Then think about what happens to the room at four o'clock. If it doubles as a training space or gets cleared for team meetings, the stacking Nest Edge and Nest Loop are the sensible buy, and our wider stacking chairs and folding chairs ranges cover rooms that change shape every week. If the seating stays put, a fabric seat like the Turin is kinder over a long lunch, while a moulded shell wipes clean in one pass and shrugs off spilt soup.
Tables and the rest of the room
Most canteen fit-outs start with the chairs and end up rethinking everything else. Canteen and restaurant sets pair tables and seating that were designed together, the full Break Out and Canteen range shares finishes so a mixed room still looks planned, stools suit high benches and counters, and a couple of soft seating pieces in the corner give people somewhere different to sit.
Canteen chairs in Belfast and across Northern Ireland
Office Interior Solutions fit out staff canteens and breakout rooms right across Northern Ireland, from our Belfast base out to Lisburn, Antrim, Newtownabbey, Bangor, Newry and Derry. Chairs arrive built or are assembled on site by our own fitters, delivery and installation are part of the job, and every scrap of cardboard leaves in the van with us.
Canteens are nearly always smaller than the staff list suggests, so tell us how many people break at once rather than how many work in the building and we will size the seating properly. Send a photo of the room or ring +44 (0)2890 770019 and talk it through with someone who has fitted a few hundred of these.
