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Why two quotations for the same restaurant dining tables differ by 30%

In short: The difference is almost never profit. It is material grade, joint construction, finish system, packing and the honest inclusion of freight — five lines that are easy to leave out and expensive to discover later.

Lead time
45–70 days door to door
Sampling
15 days, no sampling fee
MOQ
6 pcs per model
Load rating
150 kg whole-chair static
Custom sizes
No upcharge, no tooling fee

The six lines that make up a unit price

Every factory price for restaurant dining tables decomposes into material, labour, hardware, surface finishing, packing, and overhead plus margin. Ask for the price broken into those six lines and the comparison between suppliers becomes possible. Most quotations arrive as one number, which is exactly why they cannot be compared.

Material is where the biggest legitimate spread sits. Solid ash and rubberwood are both 'solid wood'; one costs roughly twice the other. Neither is wrong for a restaurant, but a quote that does not name the species is a quote for whichever was cheaper that month.

Where a cheap quotation hides its savings

A price 30% below the others usually saves on four things: thinner section timber, fewer coats of finish, no corner protection in packing, and a seat foam density that collapses within a year. None of those show in a photo, and all of them show in service.

The one that costs the most is foam density. Seat foam below about 35 kg/m³ in a restaurant loses its recovery under daily use, and a chair with a collapsed seat is scrapped regardless of how good the frame is.

What should never be negotiable

Three lines should not move: the joint construction, the finish system and the packing. Everything else — dimensions, fabric, colour, quantity per model — can be discussed. If a supplier is willing to discount by removing corner protection, the discount is being paid for by the freight claim.

The practical move is to ask each supplier to quote the same written specification rather than their own. Send the specification with the enquiry and the quotations collapse towards each other, because they are finally answering the same question.

Why the specification, not the price, is the decision

Two quotations for restaurant dining tables are only comparable when they answer the same written specification. Once they do, the remaining difference is construction and material grade — which is exactly the difference that shows up in year two, in a room full of guests, with no spare chairs.

The cheapest reliable path is to fix the specification, fix the drawing, and then compare. It takes one extra week at the start and removes most of the reasons a project has to buy the same furniture twice.

Inspection before shipment

Inspection should cover four things: dimensions against the drawing, the finish under raking light rather than from a metre away, the joint tightness on a random unit, and the carton marking against the packing list. Photograph each one. An inspection report without photographs is a report of an opinion.

The check that gets skipped is the carton count against the order. It is also the one that produces the shortfall claim, three weeks later, when the container is already at destination.

Packing, freight terms and the small print

Export packing for restaurant dining tables means corner protection on every carton, a moisture barrier inside, and the model and quantity marked outside. Terms are normally FOB Shenzhen or Guangzhou; CIF and door delivery are quoted on request, and the freight is quoted separately so that it stays visible rather than being buried in the unit price.

Ask which port and which forwarder before you sign. A factory that quotes FOB without naming the port has not yet checked whether your container can be loaded there.

Where this fits on our own range

Our restaurant dining tables, custom dining tables and steel restaurant tables are built to the same drawing discipline, so the numbers above apply there without translation. These are the pages the same workshop builds to, so the dimensions, finishes and load ratings discussed above apply directly rather than in principle.

Two models built to the specification discussed above are the JP-T119 dining table and the JP-T113 dining table; both are quoted against your drawing rather than a stock size.

Frequently asked questions

What load rating should I ask for?

Ask for a whole-chair static load rating that applies the load to the seat and back assembly together, not a seat-only figure. The target for restaurant use is 150 kg.

Can the dimensions be changed?

Yes. Every model can be re-dimensioned, and the price basis does not change. The requirement is that the final dimensions are confirmed on the drawing before production, because a custom size is a new structure.

What is the lead time for restaurant dining tables?

Sampling takes about 15 days and production 15–30 days after the approved sample, so plan on 45–70 days from drawing approval to a container at your door, including transit and customs.

Sources and further reading

Other guides in this series