Welcome back to the Serv-U eight part series on refreshing the décor of your restaurant. In part five, we’ll be covering linens. If you were to do an exit survey on your patrons, what do you think they would say was the most memorable aspect of their dining experience? It is a safe bet that not one single customer is going to say that it was the napkin. Linens are one of those items that nobody really pays attention to, but helps establish the ambience of the restaurant and can turn an ordinary dining experience into an extraordinary one.

At the high-end scale of restaurants, linen is a staple and almost demanded. However, at the mid-level where patrons don’t expect to find linen it helps to move the patron’s opinion of the establishment up a peg. It’s one of those finer touches that they’ll remember, but doesn’t take center stage.

Normally, when one thinks of restaurant linens they immediately see crisp white napkins and tablecloths. However, many interior decorators are shifting to an unobtrusive color palette that matches and enhances the décor of the entire restaurant. Now it should be noted that the crisp white linens could be just the thing to enhance the overall décor but if it is not, there is a wide range of color choices to choose from.

With all the color choices available the desire to mix several different colors of table linen can start to creep into the mind. While it may sound like a good idea to jazz up the look of a dinning area, it is generally not as the space becomes too busy. A better approach to establishing contrast would be to use one color of table linen and a different color napkin or use the color in your china to establish contrast.

An alternate option to linen table clothes would be a vinyl table cloth. While a vinyl table cloth doesn’t have quite the same level of refinement as a linen one, it can still be a quick way to refresh your restaurant. The same rules for color and style that apply to linen also apply for the vinyl counterpart.

Look around the linens and vinyl tablecloth sections of Serv-U and you’ll be sure to find the perfect thing to refresh your restaurant’s décor. If you have addition questions, feel free to contact us via phone at 800-797-3788 or click the picture of the customer service representative at the top left corner of each page of the site to launch a live chat.

Now that we’ve touched on the linens, next time we’ll cover tables.