An outdoor restaurant furniture buying guide that starts with your patio, not our catalog

Before you open a catalog, go stand where the guests will sit. Look down at the surface, up at the sun, and around for the breeze, then walk to the closet where all of it will sleep in January. Three answers, and most of the buying is already done.

One rule sits above all three. Outside, buy only what the page lists for patio use. Four materials qualify: coated steel, aluminum, resin and synthetic teak. A wood-framed dining chair or a padded seat does badly in the open, because the color goes, the wood swells, the steel rusts, and the warranty doesn't step in.

The rest of this guide takes the three questions in order, then the tables and umbrellas that finish a patio, and ends with a plan you can save and reopen next spring.

Read the ground before the catalog

Brick looks forgiving until a table rocks on it. Deck boards have gaps that catch a narrow chair foot. Cobblestone tilts everything a little, never the same way twice. Poured concrete is the easy one, which is why the other three surprise people.

Press down on the corner of every table position and watch what moves. Where a table rocks, write the spot on your plan. A rocking table is a ground problem before it is a furniture problem, and a different table will rock in the very same place.

Then measure the patio at its narrowest point, not its widest. Chairs, tables and a server with a full tray all have to pass through that gap.

Match the material to the weather you get

Shop for the worst week of your season, not the average one. Each of the four materials has a temper.

• Aluminum does not rust, and it is light, which helps the crew and hurts in a breeze. An aluminum armchair with a synthetic teak seat weighs 12 pounds, stacks, and lists a 500-pound capacity.
• Resin does not rust or swell. A cross-back resin chair weighs 8 pounds, stacks, and comes in black, dark grey, olive green, taupe or white.
• Synthetic teak gives a seat or a tabletop the look of wood without wood's habits. It won't swell the way real wood does.
• Coated steel is heavier and steadier. It rusts where the coating chips, so look the chairs over at every reopening. An outdoor ladder-back chair in steel weighs 14 pounds, stacks, and is listed for patio use only.

Sun, rain and wind each pull a patio in a different direction. Choosing patio furniture for the local climate sorts them one at a time, and salt air gets its own piece if the coast is close.

Three usage lines, three meanings

Every product page carries a usage line, and it settles more than color ever will. A line that says patio means the piece is meant for outdoors. One that says indoor and patio moves between a dining room and a terrace, which suits a restaurant with glass doors between the two. A line that says covered patio only wants a roof overhead: a slatted metal chair with a synthetic teak seat carries that one, so the roof is part of the deal.

The classic mistake is buying the dining room's chair for the patio because the two ought to match. If the page doesn't list patio use, the chair stays inside, however well it looks beside the planters. Browse the full run of patio chairs with the usage line in view, and keep the lookalike indoors.

Tables and umbrellas hold the patio together

A patio table is a top and a base, and either one can be the weak half. Check that both are listed for patio use, because a top that is fine in the rain can sit on a base that isn't. Then check the seat against the top: a steel ladder-back chair has an 18-inch seat, which sits 12 inches under a 30-inch tabletop, the roomy end of the usual 10 to 12 inches.

Size comes next, and the arithmetic is short. A 30-inch square seats two with room for the plates. A 36-inch square or a 42-inch round seats four. Browse the patio tables by those sizes before you look at finishes.

An umbrella adds a third piece to the table, and its base is the heavy part. Our bases run 50 pounds in steel, 75 in concrete and steel on casters, and 95 in cast iron, and the 95-pound cast iron one lists canopies up to 11 feet where the lighter two stop at 9. Heavier means steadier, and it also means harder to move, so the closing-night arithmetic below applies to bases too. The patio umbrellas page lists each canopy and pole.

Closing night sets the chair

At 10:40 PM the last table leaves, and somebody has to put the patio away.

Say you run 15 tables of four, which is 60 chairs. At 12 pounds each, that is 720 pounds to carry in every night the patio is struck. Stack four high and it is 15 stacks of 48 pounds. The 8-pound resin chair makes the same 15 stacks 32 pounds apiece, 480 pounds all told. The 14-pound steel chair makes them 56 pounds apiece, 840 in all.

None of those is wrong. The right one is the stack your closing crew will carry without grumbling, because a chair that is hard to put away ends up left out in the rain. That is the rule of thumb: buy for closing night, not for opening day.

Measure the closet and its door before you choose, not after. Even patio pieces want a rinse, a chance to drain, and a cover or a closet at season end, and the warranty skips outdoor furniture that was left uncared for. Our storage piece lays out the whole off-season routine.

Put the patio on paper before the first order

Open a patio plan and save one chair, one table and one umbrella with a note on each: which corner, which hour, which surface. Plans live privately on our server and reopen through a secure cookie in the same browser, with no account and room for up to 30 of them. A different browser loses the plan, so download the project sheet once it is right.

Ask for free finish swatches on the samples page before you commit to a color, and look at them where the guests will sit. A person reads every order before we confirm it, and nothing is charged when you submit. Count 14 to 21 business days of lead time for standard pieces and up to about 8 weeks for anything custom, then add the freight estimate. The minimum is 8 pieces of tables and chairs, any mix.

Count the order the way the order counts. A line is one configuration, so 60 chairs in black are one line, while 30 in black and 30 in sand are two. The same chair in two finishes is always two lines, and a plan that mirrors those lines will read just like the order does.

Freight comes palletized to a dock or a tailgate. Unloading it and carrying it to the patio is your crew's job, and so are unpacking and assembly, so book the hands before the truck.

Tomorrow, before the doors open, take a tape and your phone to the patio. Measure the narrowest point, photograph the corner that rocks, and write down the hour the sun reaches the west rail. Those three lines are the brief for everything above.