Restaurant Furniture Lead Times: Planning Backwards From Opening Day

Pictured: AC Hotel, Austin, TX

Furniture is one of the last things to arrive on a construction schedule and one of the first things blamed when an opening slips. The fix is simple in principle: work backwards from the date the doors open, not forwards from the date you place the order. Here are the real numbers to plan against.

The three speeds

Standard production: 14–20 weeks. This is a custom order — your finish, your upholstery, built for you. Most projects run on this timeline.
Rush: 8–10 weeks. Available on many frames. Ask early; rush capacity is finite and it is allocated in the order it is requested.
Quick ship: 2–3 business days. In-stock items, in stocked finishes, shipping from our warehouse on receipt of payment. See quick ship and quick ship outdoor.

If your date is tighter than any of these, tell us anyway. Sometimes we can do better, and it is always worth the call.

What the 14–20 weeks does not include

This is where schedules go wrong. Production time starts once the order is complete and approved. Add to your calendar, before production begins:

Sample and approval time. Getting finish samples in front of an owner or designer, and getting a decision back, routinely takes two to three weeks. Start it early.
COM material. If you are supplying your own fabric, production does not start until the material arrives at our factory. A twelve-week backorder at the mill is a twelve-week delay to your furniture. See our COM guide.
Shop drawings on custom work. Anything genuinely custom needs drawings produced, reviewed and signed off before it goes into production.
Freight. Production ending is not delivery. Add transit, and add a few days for a Canadian border crossing.

A working backwards schedule

For a standard custom order opening in, say, 26 weeks:

Week 0–3: select frames, request samples, run the sit test, confirm finishes
Week 3–4: finalise the list, approve the proposal, place the order; COM material ordered now if applicable
Week 4–24: production (14–20 weeks, plus float)
Week 24–26: freight, delivery, placement

Notice the float. If you plan to the minimum on every line, one slipped approval consumes it.

Get a real chair in the room first

Comfort cannot be judged from a photograph, and a chair that looks right in a rendering can be wrong at the table. We provide finish swatches, and an actual product sample for most products so you can sit in it.

Our Sample Loan Program: for projects of 10 or more pieces, up to two chair or stool samples are complimentary and we pay shipping both ways. For projects under 10 pieces, the client covers shipping and sample charges. Samples are a 60-day loan with a credit card authorisation on file, returned in the original packaging with a prepaid label. Loan samples have been out before, so expect some cosmetic wear.

What arrives assembled and what does not

All seating ships fully assembled from our factory. Tables ship with tops and bases separate, with hardware provided, for the customer to attach. Plan a little labour for tables on install day, and plan levelling — almost no restaurant floor is flat.

Ordering basics

Minimum order is typically 4 pieces per item, with smaller orders considered on request. We ship nationwide and to Canada, quick ship included.

The single most useful habit

Tell your rep the opening date at the first conversation, not at the end. Nearly every timeline problem we see could have been solved in week one by choosing a quick ship frame, a rush-eligible frame, or a standard upholstery instead of a COM. Once you are six weeks out, the options narrow to whatever is already on our floor.

Working to a date? Contact your local sales rep or a project manager or administrator in our office with the date and the piece count, and we will tell you honestly what is achievable.