Polyvinyl Placemats "Keep It Simple" With Casual Elegance!

Below are a few interesting hospitality industry trends for place mats, as excerpted from an article by Derek Gale, Senior Editor -- Hotels, 10/1/08

As food, restaurants and dining experiences in general have become more casual, so too has the tabletop.

More and more hotel restaurants are going with a more natural, minimal look, like this one from JIA Shanghai’s Issimo restaurant: fork, knife, napkin and bread plate. Even high-end hotel restaurants are becoming more casual in their approach today.As food, restaurants and dining experiences in general have become more casual, so too has the tabletop. Today’s contemporary hotel restaurant tables are uncluttered and straightforward, says Alex Hill, corporate director of food and beverage for Hyatt Hotels, who specializes in opening restaurants.

“We just do minimal,” he says. “The tabletop is a simple fork, a clean-line knife, a decent napkin and a water glass. That’s about it. Maybe a nice candle; no tablecloth. We want to be approachable.”

Hill says that if you put a giant wine glass on the table, for example, or a white tablecloth, a restaurant may appear to have a high average check and scare away guests that it hopes to bring in.

For that reason, in almost every restaurant he has opened in the last year, there has been no linen on the tables other than napkins, he says. Instead, the restaurants are designed with natural wood tabletops which are then minimally adorned.

Weather-resistant placemats are used throughout the day for a clean, natural presentation on the terrace of Neomi’s Grill at the Trump International Beach Resort in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida. Steven Rauscher, F&B director at the Trump International Beach Resort, Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, feels the same way about them.

“We’ve found that, more and more, restaurants are turning to placemats for a cleaner presentation,” Rauscher says. He uses placemats in the resort’s three-meal restaurant, Neomi’s Grill, and outside on that restaurant’s terrace.

The presentation is casual at breakfast and lunch, while for dinner, Rauscher stays with the placemats for outdoor seating, but does move to white tablecloths inside. He says this helps give the guest a different experience at different dayparts.

“When you are serving three meals within the same venue, the table setting helps tie in with the changes in service and food presentation,” he notes. “It’s just a way to let guests know that, at dinner, it’s different.”

“Color is definitely in, and using color to create a feel and enhance the room has a big impact,” says Kevin Phenegar, F&B director at The Sagamore in Bolton Landing, New York. “Shades of greens, blues, reds and (other) colors applied correctly make a huge statement in establishing a memorable event.”

“We selected this product because it’s different,” Kadic says. “It is not the typical light color look that everyone expects when they walk into the room. Our meeting rooms have a lot of beautiful wood panels throughout, so it fits quite well.”