Upholstered Dining Banquette Bench

Upholstered Dining Banquette Bench

Banquettes are seating units which are usually built in and are particularly popular in restaurants and cafes. They are usually, but not always, built against a wall.  Alternative names include fixed seating, booth seating and bench seating.

Banquettes are an excellent solution for unusual niches, can add character or quirkiness to an interior design and can be a more practical solution than individual chairs. They can often help to maximise seating capacity in a hospitality space and can be used as a dividing feature. Sitting on a wide banquette seat can also be more comfortable than sitting on a chair.

Banquette seats are inevitably upholstered, creating a wide expanse that is vulnerable to food and drink spills; with this in mind, many designers opt for upholstery which can be wiped-clean or choose patterned upholstery designs with good stain-hiding properties.Because of the generous curves inherent in most banquettes, the fabric used for upholstery should have some stretch in it, to avoid unsightly wrinkles.

In most circumstances, banquette seating needs a pre-installation survey and needs to be installed by a professional installer – invariably there are details like skirting boards or pipes that need adjusting for.

What's the difference between banquette, booth and bench seating?

Banquette, booth & bench are all custom-built seating solutions that can be designed in a multitude of ways, so it's easy to get confused over which is which. Sometimes the names are interchangeable.

• Banquette - A long run of upholstered seating, usually against a wall.
• Booth - Seating which provides an intimate area, usually consisting of two seating units facing each other with a table in the middle.
• Bench - A run of seating which can look more like a long sofa; can be straight or curved.

Specifying banquette seating

Banquette seating is usually built to order, from scratch, so pretty much everything is possible, at a cost; below we give guidelines from our experience.

Size
The seat height for banquettes is dependent on the chairs and tables that you pair it with. The usual depth is 470mm, though this can increase to 500-520mm if a lounge feel is required. Poseur height seats are also a popular option in nightclubs, particularly near bar areas, where customers tend to be on their feet as well as sitting. Back heights vary considerably - high-backed banquette seating can make a greater impact.

Poseur height bench seating in Dirty Martini Birmingham. Photo by Michael Franke.

Comfort
Like an upholstered chair, banquette seating can be constructed with springs (and foam) or foam on board. Sprung seating is generally a more comfortable and more expensive option. Foam on board upholstery, called 'platform' seating, is the cheaper choice.

Topics: Specification tips

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Upholstered Dining Banquette Bench

Source: https://info.thecontractchair.co.uk/blog/banquette-seating-guide

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