There are 10 essential and easy ways to make a restaurant kid and family-friendly.

1.      Find furniture that’s easy to clean

It’s essential those furniture pieces are easy to clean when kids will be using them.  Tablebases.com offers a wide variety of easy-to-clean furniture. Choose simple lines and solid materials that are easy to wipe down. Consider table tops like these granite table tops.

2.      Make the menu kid friendly

Even if your menu is sophisticated and high-end, it’s important to remember that kids like simple foods with simple flavors, so offer a kid menu with child-friendly items like pasta, grilled cheese and chicken tenders. Children who have sophisticated palates can order smaller plates off the regular menu.

3.      Choose cheerful décor

Easy-to-clean furniture is essential, of course, but think about the rest of the décor when planning a kid-friendly restaurant. Bright colors and a lot of light are often enticing to families.

4.      Choose the right seating

Make sure you have booster seats and high chairs available for kids. Regular chairs should also be comfortable for smaller bodies.

5.      Create a design that’s easy to maneuver in

Families with children also often come with strollers and toddlers, so make sure the furniture design allows for larger walkways and a straight path from the front of the restaurant to seating and to bathrooms.

6.      Make the environment kid friendly

If your restaurant is of a sports bar variety, consider tuning one of the televisions to Nickelodeon or the Disney Channel. It might be ideal to seat families in areas that provide a good view of that television.

7.      Promote your kid-friendly offerings

Depending on your location in town, you might want to partner with other kid-friendly businesses to drive new business to your restaurant. For example, if there are museums or toy stores near you, you can promote your restaurant to these establishments and drive some of that traffic to your restaurant. This can be an excellent way to increase lunch business.

8.      Offer kid activities

Kids like to have something to do while they wait for food. Offer crayons and coloring books or put white butcher paper over the tables so kids can color on them. This also helps to entertain children while their parents eat lunch or dinner.

9.      Spread the word

Maybe your restaurant doesn’t look like a kid-friendly restaurant from the outside and you want to promote your kid and family-friendly status. Use word-of-mouth advertising to get families to your restaurant. You can do this by talking up people, adding the listing to family magazines and dining guides and using blogs to generate interest.

10.   Don’t forget the restrooms

Many parents have looked in vain for good family-friendly bathrooms. Simply adding a changing table to your restrooms (both the men’s and women’s) can create a huge stir in favor of your restaurant.

Creating a family-friendly restaurant is a fairly simple switch as long as you consider the various needs and preferences of kids and their parents. Visit Tablebases.com for furniture ideas to help your transformation along.

There are five primary reasons why churches should add a coffee house.

1. Create a revenue stream

If there is one lesson to be learned from Starbucks, it’s that there’s a great profit margin in coffee. We all love a good caffeine fix and are willing to pay a few dollars for it. Churches can benefit greatly from this, using the coffee shop as a fundraiser to help pay for new buildings, outreach and charity.

2. Create a Sense of Community

People who feel connected to their church are more likely to give back to that church and to get a valuable, important experience from the church. When there’s a coffee house within the place of worship, people are more likely to chat after bible study, to make new friends in a casual setting and perhaps even brainstorm ways to reach out to the community.

3. De-Mystify Church

Many people these days – particularly those of a younger generation – are quite comfortable in coffee houses but they might not be quite as comfortable in church or spiritual building settings. Adding a coffee house – something that is familiar to them – is a way to make church accessible, comfortable and less imposing.

4. Modernize the church

Coffee houses these days aren’t just about coffee. They often offer free Wi-Fi, and they feature interesting and unique music. You can bring your house of worship into this very modern world with the simple addition of a coffee shop. Consider offering free Wi-Fi so churchgoers can head to the coffee house after church to work, surf the net, or just gather and chat.

5. Benefit other aspects of the church

Is your church bookstore struggling? Adding a coffee house will encourage reading, which also benefits the church bookstore. In turn, the bookstore will help the coffee house as people will want to take their reading material and enjoy it with a cup of coffee.

Perhaps one of the best pieces of news is that adding a coffee shop doesn’t have to be a prohibitively expensive project for churches. Tablebases.com offers a variety of inexpensive options for outfitting a coffee shop, like this Werzalit Table Top and affordable table base. Seating is important and should be comfortable, but it doesn’t have to be expensive, as these comfortable and versatile vertical back chairs prove.

Adding a coffee house is an excellent way to benefit the members of a church; it encourages community and fellowship. Tablebases.com makes it all affordable.

Location: The first consideration is location. Most food courts are indoors at airports and malls, but some are located outside. If the food court (or a portion of it) will be located outside, the furniture should be weatherproof and durable. If furniture will be located inside only, there are a few more options.

Function: Design is a matter of function. That is, the function is largely about keeping people comfortable while they enjoy a quick email. It’s not about encouraging them to linger; therefore, furniture can be functional and somewhat comfortable, but doesn’t have to be expensive.

Style: Most food courts are best served by furniture that’s modern and clean looking. This look works well in most designs; many food courts also employ a simple and colorful look.

Efficiency: Best choices include loose tables and chairs that can be move around easily and that can be cleaned often and quickly. At Tablebases.com, there are a multitude of options in simple and basic table bases that can be moved easily and quickly when needed. Pair these with a multitude of table top options, all of which are versatile and easy to clean and the food court is well on its way toward being furnished.

Chair Options: Once tables are chosen, all that’s left is chairs. Chairs are usually heavy enough to withstand the high traffic level they’ll see, but light enough to be moved easily. They also should be easy to clean. Many of the chair selections at Tablebases.com are made from metal, which is a popular option for food courts. Another popular choice is finished wood.

It’s not difficult to furnish food courts if the basics are considered. That is, the furniture should look and stay clean, be functional and do its duty easily and affordably. Tablebases.com offers enough variety in furniture choices to serve all these needs and more.

When you first open a restaurant, you might want to save a few dollars by not overfilling the restaurant with furniture. But some diners might view the lack of furniture and assume that means lack of customers; you could also run into a different problem and find that during busy times you don’t have enough seating.

So how can you create the right amount of seating?

Think of it this way: The more the better.

In general, when people go out to eat, they like to be around other people. Don’t assume that tables need to be far apart or that there needs to be only few of them. While you don’t want people squeezing through the restaurant and feeling annoyed that it’s just too full, the reality is that the more full the restaurant (of people and furniture) the more people will assume it’s a popular place to be.

Now, once you fill a restaurant with furniture, it’s important that the furniture itself be balanced. Don’t place all the furniture on one side of the restaurant in order to create a walking path; by contrast, don’t just place furniture sloppily throughout the restaurant. It’s important that there is a defined system of furniture placement.

Once you know that you need to add furniture and you are faced with balancing that furniture, consider these tips:

• Create clear walkways, but don’t assume they have to be straight paths through the restaurant
• Depending on the type of restaurant, consider creating groupings of tables and chairs, leaving other areas a bit more open
• If space is truly at a premium, and it works with your restaurant genre, consider family-style seating where guests mix and mingle with others at tables that are grouped together.

Once you have considered your needs and the various options available, visit Tablebases.com for a wide array of tabletops, table bases and chairs that can suit your needs.

Whether the current furniture is tired and torn or relatively new but no longer fitting the style and tenor of the restaurant, consider spring as a great time to change the current mix of furniture.

Here are some reasons why adding new furniture to your restaurant in the springtime is a good idea:

• As with new furniture in our homes, new restaurant furniture will help to refresh your spaces
• New furniture will tell return customers that you care about your restaurant enough to freshen it up and improve it every now and then
• Adding new furniture can quickly revive a tired restaurant space
• Restaurants with a great sense of style can seamlessly add new pieces to blend with the old
• Doing so helps to reduce the wear and tear on all of the furniture; when you blend in new pieces, they get use, which might reduce the use on the older pieces of furniture, keeping it all looking nicer longer

When looking for new furniture to freshen up your spaces, keep a few things in mind.

First, it’s not essential that you find furniture that perfectly matches what you have now. You can simply coordinate the furniture. Take a look around Tablebases.com for a wide array of furniture choices that can complement what you have now.

You don’t need to add a lot of pieces to add a new look to your restaurant’s dining space. You might simply add new barstools, or a few new table tops. Sometimes just a few small changes can make a huge difference in the look of a room.

No matter your needs, Tablebases.com can help with them. If the need is for a dining room full of new furniture or just a few simple new pieces, you’ll find it here.

Adding high-quality furniture to your business or organization can benefit both your staff and your customers, by creating a better environment to be in. Tablebases.com is the ideal place to find furniture for commercial purposes. Tablebases.com sells an array of stools, table bases, table tops, restaurant chairs, conference seating chairs and more.

If you're looking for furniture for your commercial business, then it's important that you consider all of the options available to you. Whether you run a church, own a corporate business, restaurant, club or bar, at Tablebases.com you will find something that fits your needs.

Restaurants and Taverns

Stylish and comfortable seating is very important for restaurants, as are suitable and practical tables. Tablebases.com offers many options that allow you to custom build your tables to your needs. We offer a variety of table tops such as granite, stainless steel, and many popular table base series.  Our popular series include the RFL Series Table Bases; these provide a business with a more contemporary style. The RockSteady Table Bases are ideal for areas where the ground is uneven, such as outdoors. If you are looking to add a touch of elegance to your business, take a look at the C Series Table Bases.

Churches & Spiritual Buildings

As there are many different occasions at churches and spiritual buildings, it's important that you have seating that can be easily moved or rearranged. This is where stacking chairs are ideal. Stacking chairs slot together, meaning that they can be stacked on top of one another. This makes storage much easier, as the chairs are compact and can be easily pushed to the side. This is a great space saver and allows you to add more chairs or take chairs away when necessary.

Bars & Clubs

For a comfortable bar and club, high-quality bar stools are a must. Tablebases.com sells an array of comfortable traditional barstools, such as the Ladder Back Bar Stools and the Window Back Bar Stools. These are generally a little more comfortable than traditional bar stools and are great for customers who like to watch the game while enjoying a drink. Bar stools are available in a variety of colors including dark red, brown and silver and they are made from a variety of different materials such as wood and metal.

Banquet Halls

Banquet halls need many chairs and tables as they often seat many people at once.  Tablebases.com carries an affordable selection of folding tables, such as the T60 Folding Table, which are easy to store and rearrange. Folding tables and folding chairs are ideal for banquet halls as they are very durable, easy to clean and maintain.

Hotels & Motels

Hotels and motels require seating and tables for many different environments and purposes. Chairs and tables may be needed for lounge areas, guest bedrooms, balconies, and reception areas. Tablebases.com has a large selection of stylish chairs with extensive color options at low prices. A chair such as the Window Back Chair, is an ideal addition to any hotel or motel room. The Vertical Back Bar Stool  is a great choice for an upscale hotel bar, and is just one of the many bar stools that we have to offer.

Tables are also an important feature of any hotel or motel and Tablebases.com provides a rich choice. We carry granite, stainless steel, Anthracite Steel and Werzalit Table Tops, good for indoor and outdoor use.

Tablebases.com vast selection of seats and tables are also perfect for areas such as libraries, lounges, senior centers and assisted living centers. Finding the right furniture to suit your business can be a little tricky and time-consuming, but at Tablebases.com we make the process effortless. You can view our collection of tables, chairs, table tops, table legs and table bases all in one place.  No matter what your needs are, you're sure to find something that's right for your business.

Purchasing a table base to match an existing chair or bar stool

Selecting the right table base and seats that compliment each other is essential to the comfort of your customers. Following the steps outlined in this guide we have compiled for your convenience will help you to order the correct table base height for your current chair/stool height.A certain ratio is used to calculate the distance of the seating surface in relation to the dining surface. This is the established ratio used to obtain standard comfort for the average adult population.

Ratio: The ratio used for matching table base height with chairs is approximately 12 inches between the surface of the seating and the eating surface. It is vital that this ratio is used when matching table bases to bar stools.

How to calculate a table base height

1. Determine the thickness of the table top you would like to use
2. Measure from the floor to the top of the chair/stool seat
3. Add 12" to the seat height and then subtract the tabletop thickness
4. Your result should be the approximate table base height

Example: 18" (seat height) + 12" (space allowance) - 1.5" (table top thickness) = 28.5" (table base height)

Calculate table base height

Unless you are matching to an existing counter or table, this number does not need to be exact. A tabletop that is a bit shorter or taller than 30" will not likely be noticeable when sitting at the table.

Purchasing a chair or bar stool to match an existing table

The same sort of calculation can be used for counter height tables. Most kitchen counters are approximately 36" from the floor to the top of the counter. It is best to buy counter stools that are approximately 24" to the top of the seat.

How to calculate a seat height

1. Measure the distance from the floor to the top of the counter
2. Subtract 12"
3. Your result should be the approximate chair seat height

Example: 36" (distance from floor to counter top) – 12" (space allowed) = 24" (counter stool height)

Calculate seat height

As you can see, finding the right table base can be super simple, so relax, have a seat, go online, and make a selection.

Lately we have been working with Designing Accessible Communities, (www.designingaccessiblecommunities.com ) a non-profit organization that promotes policies and products for accessible design, to identify table bases that can be used to build wheelchair accessible tables.

Despite the fact that there has been a Federal Law requiring wheelchair accessibility in public places since 1992, there is still a lot of confusion about the requirements. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a Federal civil rights law that prohibits the exclusion of people with disabilities from everyday activities. The ADA requires that 5% of dining, banquet and bar tables must be wheelchair accessible. This means that 1 out of every 20 tables in a restaurant must be accessible for patrons in a wheelchair. It also means that if there is a separate bar or banquet area, that each area must have the required number of accessible tables. Small restaurants and cafes are not exempted from the regulations; if the restaurant or bar has less than 20 tables, at least 1 must be accessible.

An accessible table has a clear area under the table that is at least 19” deep by 30” wide and 27” high. It is usually recommended that the area under the table be approximately 29” tall to serve persons with larger electric wheelchairs. The surface of the table top must be between 28” and 34” above the floor. The clear area under the table cannot have any obstruction that will interfere with either the wheelchair or the knees and feet of the patron.

For smaller round, or square tables, our bolt-down bases are usually the best solution if you can permanently mount them in place. The bolt-down bases have the smallest footprint and therefore the least amount of interference of all our bases. These bases are:

Eclipse Stainless Steel
P1F Black
P1F Chrome
Roswell Stainless Steel

For rectangular tables a pair of T Style Bases will work well. The bases must be placed so that there is at least 30” clear between them. These bases are:

B22T Black
B22T Chrome
B22T Stainless Steel
XG22T Black
XG22T Chrome

Using 4 of our table legs are a good choice for larger round, square or rectangular tables. These legs are:

Katrina Stainless Steel
PL3 Black
PL4 Black

It should also be noted that there must be a 30” x 48” clear area at each accessible seating location. The 30” x 48” area can include the 19” that extends under the table that we talked about above. There must be an accessible route to the table. This is a 36” wide path, even with people seated at tables.

Besides the legal requirements, I think, a lot of the restauranteurs I talk with understand that it is good business to accommodate all of their potential customers. It is also simply the right thing to do.