Measuring for custom restaurant booths, one wall at a time

From the middle of a booth, a guest never sees the wall behind them. The wall still decides whether the booth fits. Walls bow, corners lean, and a baseboard stands out further than anyone remembers, so a booth built to a single tape reading inherits every one of those faults on the day it arrives.

A booth in the configurable booths range is built to order from the options on its page, and the numbers you send are the numbers it is built to. Once it is in production, they can't change. That puts the work up front: measure twice, write everything on one sheet, and put the sheet in the order notes, where a person reads it before the order is confirmed.

Length: three readings, and the smallest one wins

Start with the run, the distance from the corner to wherever the booths stop. That might be a host stand, a window return, a doorway, or the first loose table. Measure it at three heights: at the floor, at seat level, and across the top of the back.

Say the floor reads 258 inches, seat level reads 257 1/2, and the top of the back reads 257. The wall leans a little, and the booth has to fit the smallest number. Take off a further inch of play so the last piece slides in without a mallet, and the working length is 256 inches.

On the plain-back custom booth, length is set in 1-inch steps from 24 to 72 inches, with 48 as the standard. Steps that fine mean you never settle for a booth that stops 5 inches short and leaves a slot for crumbs and dropped napkins. Back height has three choices, 36, 42, and 48 inches, and it is a sight-line decision as much as a measurement. A 36-inch back keeps the room open, 42 is the standard, and 48 closes the table off for the second hour of dinner.

Cutting a long wall into benches

No bench in that range runs longer than 72 inches, so a 256-inch wall takes several. Four equal benches at 64 inches fill it exactly. A bench seats one guest for every 24 inches of table edge, or one for every 18 at the tightest, so each of those holds two guests comfortably and three in a squeeze: eight seats, or twelve if everyone leans in.

Now mix the lengths. Two benches at 72 inches and two at 56 also total 256. The long ones seat three guests at 24 inches each, and the short ones seat two with 8 inches to spare, so the count is 3 + 3 + 2 + 2. Ten comfortable seats from the same wall.

The rule of thumb: 48 inches seats two and 72 inches seats three with no inch wasted. Anything between is a compromise, and it helps to know which seat you are compromising.

The table belongs to the same decision. A table that stops short of the bench leaves the end guest with no edge in front of them, so settle the booth tables before the benches, or send both lengths together. Our guide to booth and table fit goes through the pairings.

Depth: bench, gap, table, bench

Across the floor the arithmetic is a sum of five things. One metal booth with a solid wood back lists a single bench at 23 3/4 inches deep and a double at 43 1/2. Two single benches face each other across a 30-inch table, with a hand's width between each bench front and the table edge. Call that 4 inches. The sum is 23 3/4 + 4 + 30 + 4 + 23 3/4, or 85 1/2 inches.

Add a 36-inch service lane on the open side and the pair claims 121 1/2 inches of floor, a little over ten feet. A room that gives you 11 feet, or 132 inches, from the booth wall to the next obstruction leaves 10 1/2 inches over. Spend them on the lane. A gap wider than a hand lets guests drift away from the table, and a lane is the safest place for extra inches.

Corners, outlets and baseboards

Corners hide the worst news. Check one with a 3-4-5 triangle: mark 36 inches along one wall and 48 along the other, then measure the diagonal between the marks. A true right angle reads 60 inches. Longer means the corner opens up, shorter means it closes in, and either way the diagonal goes on the sheet beside the length. For a turn, an L-shaped booth takes the corner in one piece, while a modular booth with wood legs builds it from loose pieces, with end and armless pieces listed at 48 inches long and corner pieces at 73.

One mistake costs more than the rest: measuring once, at the floor, from the corner you can see. A baseboard that stands out holds the back of a booth away from the wall by exactly that thickness, and a wall that leans in at the top turns a booth that fit at the floor into one that doesn't. Run the tape along the baseboard, the chair rail, and the wall above them, and write down the shortest.

Then mark what is on the wall: outlets, switch plates, a sconce, a window sill, a vent. A booth that covers an outlet buries it. The plain-back booth lists a power package of 2 outlets plus USB and USB-C, in black or white, so have the electrician mark where the feed will arrive before you choose it. On the channel-back and button-tufted booths the base is a choice too: a black kick base as standard, or wood legs, metal legs, or a laminate in a reclaimed look.

The route from dock to wall

Booths arrive by freight on pallets, at a dock or a tailgate. Moving them from there to the wall is the buyer's work, and stairs stop the driver at the door. Unpacking and assembly are never included. Liftgate and inside delivery can be booked when the order is submitted, for an extra charge, and the delivery page lists them all.

Walk the route with the tape before you order: the door, the tightest turn, any stairs, the elevator car. A 72-inch bench is 6 feet long, so every one of those has to pass it. Write the narrowest width on the sheet.

The sheet that goes with the order

One sheet per run. Each line carries the three length readings, the shortest, and the working length after the inch of play, then the depth, the back height, the corner diagonal, the position of every outlet, vent, and sill, and how far the baseboard stands out. Add the shape, base, and upholstery you chose. A seating plan keeps the configured booths and your notes together and downloads as a project sheet, so the run can live there until you order.

Send it in the order notes. We read every order before it is confirmed, and a sheet that answers the questions in advance saves the email that would have asked them. Upholstery deserves the same care: free swatches come from the samples page by UPS Ground, 2 to 3 business days in transit, and a color on a screen looks different across a 72-inch bench. If a number won't settle, a specialist will call back Monday to Friday, in Central time windows from 8 AM to 6 PM.

Last, photograph the wall with the tape stretched along it and the reading visible in the frame. The photograph answers the question about the sill before anyone asks it. The guide to buying a restaurant booth covers the choices that come after the measuring.