Hotel patio furniture for a terrace set as carefully as the dining room

The terrace is often the first table a guest asks for. They see it from the lobby, through the restaurant glass, and on a warm evening every seat outside fills before the dining room does. When they sit down, the terrace should look as deliberate as the room behind it: the same spacing, the same order, chairs that match down the line.

Only one kind of furniture belongs out there. Every chair and table on the terrace has to carry a patio listing on its record, and some of those listings come with a condition worth reading twice.

The listing comes first

Open any piece in our patio chairs and look at the usage line. It will say patio, or indoor and patio. A dining room chair with a wood frame or an upholstered seat says indoor only, and it will not last a season in the open: sun fades it, rain swells the wood and finds the steel. Our warranty does not cover an indoor piece used outside.

Then look for a second line. A few outdoor chairs carry the note "use in covered patio only". The black metal patio armchair with a faux teak seat is one: patio listed, stackable, 22 inches wide with an 18-inch seat, but meant for a terrace under a roof or a fixed canopy. Under an open sky it is the wrong chair, however well it matches.

That gives the rule of thumb for any hotel terrace. Is it covered? Then the covered patio pieces are open to you. Is it open to the weather? Then choose only pieces whose listing names patio use with no covered condition.

Chairs for the terrace restaurant

For an open terrace, aluminum with a synthetic teak seat is a composed choice that reads warm in the evening light. Take the aluminum terrace armchair in black with a walnut-tone teak seat. Its frame is 23 1/4 inches wide by 22 deep, the seat height is 17 3/4 inches, and the whole chair weighs 12 pounds. Patio use and indoor use are both on its listing, it stacks, and it carries 500 pounds.

Twelve pounds matters at the end of the night, and it matters more on a terrace than indoors, because weather does not wait for the last cover to leave. A terrace that is cleared before a storm, or stacked for a private event on the lawn, moves quickly when each chair is that light. Eighty of them come to 960 pounds in all, about what a ballroom team lifts in sixty banquet chairs.

Against a 30-inch table the 17 3/4-inch seat leaves 12 1/4 inches below the top, a fraction past the usual 10 to 12. Sit a member of your team at the actual table before you order the full count.

Tables, sizes and shade

To go with it, the black aluminum terrace table with a walnut-tone slatted top is listed for patio use and stands 30 inches high. It comes in four sizes. The squares measure 30 and 36 inches a side, and the two rectangles are each 30 deep, one 48 inches long and one 60. Its listing includes an umbrella hole, so each table can take its own shade, and our patio umbrellas pair with it.

Now a worked example. A terrace of 1,200 square feet, planned at 15 square feet a seat because umbrellas and a wider aisle take room, gives 80 seats. Set it as 12 tables of 30 by 48 inches for four, which is 48 seats, and 16 tables of 30 by 30 for two, which is 32. That is 28 tables and 80 chairs. Run a 36-inch service aisle from the restaurant door to the far rail, and give every chair 18 to 24 inches of clear deck at its back so a guest can rise. Treat the per-seat figure as early planning only; your architect or designer checks the local code for the terrace.

The tables for two can be pushed together along the rail for a party of four when the night calls for it, and split again for breakfast. Browse the rest in patio tables.

If you would rather start with the pieces already matched, a patio set with armchairs and a table comes with two or four matching chairs. Its table runs in four sizes, the smallest a 24-inch square and the largest 30 by 48 inches, base included. Our outdoor furniture sets cover the other finishes.

The mistake on a busy Sunday

Here is how terraces lose chairs. Sunday brunch overflows, the terrace is short six seats, and someone carries six dining room chairs outside. They stay there for the afternoon, and then for the week. By the end of the month the finish has faded and the joints have loosened, and none of it is covered.

Order the terrace count with a margin of patio chairs for exactly that day. Six spares stacked in the terrace store cost less than six ruined dining chairs, and the rows outside stay matched.

Care through the season

Patio pieces still need looking after. Rinse the chairs and tables down after a busy service, especially on a terrace near the sea, and see that rain drains off the seats and table tops rather than sitting in them. Cover or store the furniture when the season ends. Outdoor furniture left without care is excluded from the warranty, and the warranty period on patio chairs and tables is six months, so routine care is what carries the terrace into its second and third year.

Write a short care note for the terrace team: who rinses, on which nights, where the covers are kept. Read our warranty page for the full terms before the season opens.

The terrace as its own plan

Set the terrace up in property plans as a separate plan from the restaurant inside, with the chairs, the tables by size and the umbrella count. A plan per outlet keeps the outdoor listing check in one place, and a reorder for next season is a matter of opening it.

If the property also serves meals by the pool, the same rules hold there; our guides to poolside furniture and poolside chairs work through the wet deck and the pool bar line.