How to Build Industrial Furniture for Your Restaurant

With the popularity of the "industrial look", you may be thinking about incorporating industrial-style furniture into your restaurant's overall design and layout. But, where do you start?

To help you come up with some ideas for your own restaurant, we've created this article to cover a few keys pieces of furniture where you can use industrial pipe and fittings in the design. Pipe fittings enable you to build your own industrial restaurant table and chairs even without having any prior building experience (we even have a few kits available for table frames).

So without further ado, let's take a look at few past customer designs that would work well in any industrial-chic restaurant.

Industrial Dining Tables & Bar Tops

These tables and benches were built for the 3FE (Third Floor Expresso), a famous coffee bar in Dublin. The restaurant table tops and bench tops are made using plywood, while the table and bench frames were built using parts supplied by Simplified Building. Scaffolding pipe is used to accentuate the industrial look.

If you use Gator Tubing or some other style of pipe that has a shinier finish, there are still a few ways to get that "aged" or distressed pipe look. One way is by lightly spray painting the pipe using a dark finish. Another method is to heat the pipe. This post covers how one of our customers used a blow torch to give their pipe a distressed look. Warning: if your restaurant furniture will be used in outdoor seating areas, using a blowtorch will remove most if not all of the anticorrosive clear coat on the outside of the Gator tube. One last method that we know includes using Perma Blue Liquid Gun to give the pipe a similar finish. This post covers the process in further detail.

Here's what the company that designed and built the tables for 3FE had to say about the project:

"We used scaffolding and plywood to build the furniture but steered away from the austere nature of these materials to create an elegant and minimal aesthetic. This was achieved through unconventional use of the scaffolding joints and using subtle angles with, what is normally, a crudely assembled material."

You can check out more on this project here.

This wall and ground mounted table was built by one of our customers for the kitchen in his small garage apartment. The design could also be used in a restaurant to accompany a booth or other cafe standalone seating.

The table top utilizes a Gerton top from Ikea that costs $90. Kee Lite fittings are nearly identical to our galvanized fittings but are made from lighter, sleeker looking aluminum.

The original dimensions of the top were 61" x 29-1/2" x 1-1/8" thick. However, the owner of this table cut the top down to size and used the remaining section as an accent on the wall. The finished table is 51" long x 29-1/2" wide x 36" tall. Check out the full tutorial on this project here.

This table comes straight from our ultimate list of DIY table ideas. While the frame gives off an industrial vibe, the beautiful finish on the table has a modern look. It's a unique combination that would work well in any modern-industrial restaurant design.

This bar height table is used in a small coffee shop in Miami, Florida. In addition to the industrial tables, the owner also built a custom sofa using fittings from Simplified Building to match. Here's what the owner had to say about the two projects:

"We used Kee Klamps to construct our coffee shop window bars and our custom bench seat. Our customers love the look and everything is solid! We appreciate the great customer support you supplied."

We put together an entire "how-to" post on how to build these exact tables that you can check out here.

This outdoor patio table features a custom-built top crafted from reclaimed wood and makes for a warm and rugged, family-style restaurant table. The Flange fitting is used to support the top and acts as a "foot" for the table legs. The Tee is then used to add each of the horizontal supports.

This large patio table features a custom-built table top from reclaimed boards. The table frame, as well as the stools, are both built using pipe clamps. The table frame offers a rugged, yet functional design, by making use of casters which allow the table to easily be moved when necessary.

This table was built by Gene for his agency's office in Marietta, Georgia. The design would pair great in any industrial-style restaurant setting. Gene utilized our Basic Table Kit to make the assembly process even easier:

"The kit format made it very appealing. It was great being able to simply enter our top measurements and the site take it from there"

Seating: Industrial Chairs & Stools

This unique design uses just one type of fitting, the 15 fitting to create a "winding" appearance.

This industrial pipe stool makes use of the Four Socket Cross, the elbow, and Flange fitting. The Flange has an open socket on one end to accept pipe. On the other end is a circular plate with four holes in it for mounting. In this case, the Flange is used to mount the stool's wood seat.

These stools feature a built-in backrest along with a custom paint job using black spray paint to cover the fittings and pipe. A full tutorial on building these exact stools can be found here.

A few unique fittings used in the frame of this chair include the Combination Socket Tee and Crossover fitting and the Adjustable Side Outlet. The Adjustable Side Outlet is used to create the angle for the backrest.

This chair was built using traditional pipe fittings. However, to build it using Kee Klamp, you can use the Tee fitting and the Elbow.

Industrial Style Lighting Fixtures

Above, we have show five different lighting structures. To check out each of these ideas individually, visit this post.

Starting with the first one in the top left corner, this lighting fixture was built using the Standard Vertical Railing Base fitting. The fixture directly below it (in the bottom left corner) and to the right (in the center) both use a 15 Elbow in their design. To mount the fixture to the wall, the 4-Hole Square Flange is used.

The fixture in the top right corner is a much more complicated design that spans the length of a full bar top. The main fitting used is Two Socket Cross fitting. Lastly, the lighting fixture in the bottom right corner was built using a Side Outlet Elbow fitting.

The industrial style restaurant design is not limited to "simple", it can also be used to create more intricate designs. While the design above and the one below aren't used for lighting specifically, they are used to house lighting fixture and to hang glassware at the bar.

Each of these designs were custom built with the help of our design team. To view our full inventory of fittings, please visit this page. Additionally, you may want to check out our desk and table frame kits for a simple approach to building custom tables for your restaurant.

Lastly, if you need any help choosing the right fittings or coming up with a design, don't hesitate to reach out to our team for help. We will work with you to come up with a perfect design for your restaurant. Get in touch by emailing us at projects@simplifiedbuilding.com or by using the contact form on this page.