Top Ten Best-Selling Restaurant & Bar Furniture Products 

Decorating a restaurant, bar, bistro, or café is no joke. For small-business operators — whose personal bottom-line is the same as their businesses' bottom line, in many cases — that's doubly true. The right décor invites new customers, makes familiar guests comfortable, and creates a look and feel, an ambiance unique to your establishment, whether your business is a neighborhood pub or a cutting-edge culinary destination. The wrong approach to décor can be a disaster, both in terms of ambiance and in running up expensive decorators' fees.

Fortunately, there are some time-tested solutions to hospitality decorating. Here's our Top 10 list of can't-miss pieces for your business — or home, if you're into serious entertaining. It's no accident these pieces are best-sellers.

10. Stacking aluminum indoor-outdoor chairs: You weren't really going to seat your alfresco guests on those rickety old folding card-table chairs or flimsy canvas folders, were you? Of course not. Constructed of commercial-grade, lightweight aluminum, these chairs are handsome enough to use indoors at a casual coffeehouse or bistro, but they're especially suited to indoor-outdoor uses, such as sidewalk cafés, patio dining areas, or rooftop dining. Aluminum offers a fresh modern look — but more important, it's tough, lightweight, mobile, and won't rust. This particular model stacks easily for storage.

9. Bulldog backless barstools: The wonderful thing about true high-quality wood is that it's equally attractive in ornately carved iterations or in simple, spare, elegant pieces such as this gently contoured, square-framed barstool. This is a "suggestible" design, meaning that it picks up and amplifies the décor around it, making these barstools equally at home under the paper lanterns of a sushi bar or casually arranged around a pub table in a bar or waiting area. Go with wooden seats for a clean, spare look, or opt for upholstered seating for applications where a softer look and feel is called for. With chrome or brass footplates, these stools will hold up to heavy use.

8. Indoor/outdoor steel table bases: Four-pronged table bases in heavy, commercial-grade steel can be matched with a variety of different tops for different applications, from steel tops for outdoor use to elegant wood tops for classic dining rooms. Both table-height and bar-height bases are available, along with both round and square tops. Steel table bases offer strength and understated style, and deploying separate bases and tops, as opposed to one-piece tables, allows for adaptability in use and storage.

7. Classic chrome retro barstools with double foot-ring: The vintage style of retro barstools goes almost anywhere, equally at home in a Fifties-themed diner or a modern, urban nightclub. The trick is to make sure you pick the right seating surfaces to go along with your décor. While that shiny black, leather-like vinyl upholstery does make a striking contrast with the chrome, consider other more subtle upholstery, too, such as the rich look of "Laredo buckskin" or cheerful "Floridian Blue" for that SoBe vibe.

6. Cast-iron table bases: When something less shiny than stainless steel is called for, cast-iron table bases have the advantage of being toned-down, nearly indestructible, and easy on the wallet. At $35 each, these table bases are the answer to the needs of high-volume hospitality businesses. Heavy and durable, they complement most table-tops with understated strength.

5. Black vinyl retro counter seats: Like their soda-fountain cousins, these pieces have an aesthetic pedigree that runs from the Art Deco 1930s straight into the most modern "industrial" nightclub interior. Fashion changes, but style is always in style, and nothing communicates the elements of modern style like the melding of form and function in these simple, timeless pieces. Comfortably and durably upholstered with back supports, these stools will never go out of style.

4. Beechwood counter stools: Classic design in a classic wood is a recipe for design success. Beautiful naked or in one of the dozens of available finishes that range from toffee to mahogany to paprika, beechwood is strong, attractive, and affordable. These stools offer clean lines and traditional design. Seats are available in wood or upholstered in fabric or vinyl. At the counter or at counter-height tables, these are comfortable and solid — an inviting perch for lunch, coffee, or dessert. Or all three.

3. Quick-ship bulldog wooden stools: "It's ready right now" is one of the favorite phrases of any business owner. Whether you've got an opening-night deadline or a quick expansion, there are times when you need furniture shipped immediately. Among the quick-ship items on offer here are these chair-backed beechwood barstools in walnut finish. With solid-wood construction and brass or chrome kickplates, they're ready for the punishment of commercial use, while the walnut finish offers a great deal of design flexibility — not too light, not too dark. They're ready to go when you are.

2. Classic retro bar stool: This is the single-footring cousin of the stools above. A bit lighter and a bit more spare than the others, these is the soda-fountain classic — but it's much more than that. A comfortable and versatile seating option, this stool finds itself gathered around pitchers of margaritas, boxes of bagels, and Vegas slot machines. With the right choice of upholstery, this stool can sit across the room from an Arts-and-Crafts desk or a Le Corbusier couch. Like most great classic designs, it works its way into wherever it's needed.

1. Bulldog upholstered wooden dining chair: Style isn't always a popularity contest, but there's a reason this chair is a No. 1 seller. European-made, solid beechwood chairs in a classic design, these sit around formal dining room tables at some of the best establishments. Like a classic French recipe, this is an unfussy item that advertises its worth through the intrinsic quality of its materials and workmanship, not through frills and flourishes. Whether it's paired with linen tablecloths or a pint of stout on an oak table in a traditional taphouse, this is a high-quality chair that's never underdressed.

These ten items offer a great starting point for achieving your design vision. It may be that you're a bleeding-edge Pac-Rim fusion spot designing your dining room around a 40-foot golden Buddha and a million-dollar decorating budget. Maybe you don't flinch when your dishwasher breaks five or six of those $18 wine glasses each night. In that case, you may not be too worried about saving money on cast-iron table stands. On the other hand, if your need for great style is married to your needs for pragmatic seating and dining solutions, reasonable prices, and designs that will live up to high-volume professional use, then come on inside and have a look around. Whether your feel is traditional or modern, retro or buttoned-down, there's something here that is just right for you.