Ordering fast food chairs is mostly a matter of deciding four numbers and then refusing to let anyone change them quietly. Here is what those numbers are, and where the specification usually slips.
Six questions that move the price
The same a fast food chair can be quoted at two very different numbers and both be honest. The gap is usually in six places: frame material, joint method, foam density, finish system, packing standard and the height itself.
Ask which of the six the quotation assumes. The supplier who cannot separate them is quoting a category rather than a product.
Height and base, before anything else
Start with 450 mm to the seat at a 750 mm table, with 700 to 750 mm of clear height under the top for the accessible position. The quotation that does not state the seat height has not yet established what is being bought, and every figure after it is provisional.
Then the base: four legs, a sled frame or a ganged beam, depending on whether the room is reset every night. The base decides stability, floor loading and how the piece is packed, and it decides whether two prices are comparable at all, because a column base and a four-leg base are different products at the same nominal size.
Sampling and what it should cost
A sample should arrive with the drawing it was built from and the finish code applied to it. Without the drawing a good sample proves nothing about the production run.
Expect sampling to be chargeable and the cost credited against a first order. Free samples are usually stock pieces, and stock is not evidence about a custom height or a custom colour.
Lead time stated in stages
Ask for the production window broken into drawing approval, material in, build, finishing and packing. One lead-time number hides where the delay will happen, and the delay is almost always in finishing rather than in the frame.
Add the transit leg separately. The production window that ends at the factory gate is not a delivery date, and the gap matters most on a fit-out with a fixed opening date.
The answers worth walking away from
Vague on the load test. No drawing before production. Height treated as a styling choice. Packing described as standard export. Any one is workable alone; all four together means nobody is holding the specification.
Our own route from enquiry to packed crate is described on fast food furniture factory, including where approval and inspection sit in the sequence.
Where these figures can be checked
A quotation is only comparable if it names the same standards. The fast food chairs pages carry dimensions including custom heights, and the figures quoted are measured on the finished part rather than taken from a catalogue.
Load and finish reports sit together under fast food furniture, and request a quote sets out the route from an approved drawing to a packed crate.
Where a room mixes more than one family, fast food tables is usually specified last and fits worst, so settle it in the same drawing round.
The full range is set out under quick service furniture, grouped by where each piece stands on the floor rather than by style.
Questions buyers ask
What should the drawing contain?
Seat height, base height, overall height and the load test that applies. For fast food chairs, also confirm 450 mm to the seat at a 750 mm table, with 700 to 750 mm of clear height under the top for the accessible position.
Should I pay for a sample?
Expect to. The chargeable sample built to your drawing is evidence; a free stock sample is not.
How long should a quotation take?
One or two days for a catalogue item, longer where a custom height or colour is involved, because the frame has to be re-checked against the new dimension.