Restaurant booth yardage guide
A standard four-foot booth, one back and one seat facing a single table, takes about 2 to 2.5 yards of 54-inch contract vinyl. A back-to-back booth serving two tables runs 4 to 5 yards. As a planning figure, budget roughly 0.55 yards per linear foot of booth per side, then add for tufting, piping and exposed outside backs.
That is the answer for ordering. The rest of this explains where the number comes from, because booth yardage jumps in one specific place and most people get caught by it.
First, settle what you mean by "booth." A 48-inch bench seats two people. A booth for four is two benches facing each other across a table. So when someone says they have twelve booths, the order is completely different depending on whether that means twelve benches or twelve tables. Count benches before you count anything else. Everything below is priced per bench unless it says otherwise.
The 54-inch threshold
Upholstery vinyl comes 54 inches wide. As long as a panel fits inside that width, it costs you only its own height or depth in roll length, and a four-foot booth fits comfortably. Go to a six-foot or eight-foot run and the seat panel no longer fits across the roll, so it has to run down the length instead. The yardage does not rise gently at that point. It steps.
This is why two four-foot booths use noticeably less material than one eight-foot bench of the same total length, and it is worth knowing before you commit to a layout.
The arithmetic
Work each panel separately, then check it against 54 inches.
- Measure the finished face across and top to bottom, following the crown of the foam rather than the flat of the frame.
- Add the thickness on every edge it wraps. A 4-inch seat cushion adds 8 inches to the depth.
- Add wrap-under of about 2 inches per side for the staple line.
- Add seam allowance, roughly 1/2 inch per sewn edge.
- Compare to 54 inches. Under it, the panel costs its other dimension in roll length. Over it, the panel turns and costs its longer dimension instead.
| Piece | Working | Roll used |
|---|---|---|
| Inside back, 48 × 36 in face | 48 + 4 wrap = 52 in (fits inside 54) · 36 + 4 + 2 = 42 in tall | 42 in, 1.2 yd |
| Seat, 48 × 20 in, 4 in cushion | 48 + 4 = 52 in wide · 20 + 8 + 2 = 30 in deep | 30 in, 0.85 yd |
| One side complete | Plus a working margin | 2–2.5 yd |
| Exposed outside back, if upholstered | Same width, full height | Add 0.75–1 yd |
Typical figures
| Configuration | Vinyl |
|---|---|
| Four-foot booth, single sided | 2–2.5 yd |
| Four-foot booth, back to back | 4–5 yd |
| Six-foot booth, single sided | 3.5–4 yd |
| Wall banquette, per linear foot | 0.55–0.7 yd |
| Bar stool, each | 0.5 yd |
| Dining chair seat, each | 0.5 yd |
Check these four things before you order
Measure without taking it apart
You cannot see the finished face while the old material is still on it, and you do not need to. Measure across the bench, down the back and across the seat depth over the crown of the foam, then add the cushion thickness on each edge that wraps plus two inches a side. Within an inch is close enough, because you are buying a margin anyway.
Sanity-check what you measure against the standards. Anything well outside these is worth re-measuring before you order.
| Dimension | Typical |
|---|---|
| Bench length, seats two | 48–60 in |
| Seating width allowed per person | 24–30 in |
| Seat height from floor | 18 in |
| Seat depth | 20–22 in |
| Back height, fast casual | 36–42 in |
| Back height, casual dining | 42–48 in |
| Back height, fine dining | 48–60 in |
Push on the plywood before you spend a dollar on vinyl
Booth seats and backs are plywood with foam over it. The two places that rot are the front edge of the seat, where spills land and sit, and the bottom of the back, where the mop goes every night for ten years. Press hard on the front edge of every seat. If it gives, flexes or sounds soft, new vinyl over it is money thrown away, and you will be doing the job again in a year with the same substrate underneath.
Soft plywood is a repair, not a re-cover. Get that decided before the material order, not after it arrives.
Decide whether you are stripping or covering over
Shops do both. Pulling every old staple and taking the panel back to bare plywood is the right job. Stapling the new cover straight over the old one is faster and cheaper and is normal practice on budget work, but it adds bulk, which makes your panel slightly larger than the arithmetic says, and it hides exactly the substrate problems you want to find. If you are going over the top, add a little to the yardage and accept that you are not inspecting the wood.
Plan around service, not around the shop
Most booths are built in or bolted down, and the usual method is to unbolt the seat and back panels, take them out, and bring them back covered. That means you lose a few booths for a day or two rather than closing the dining room. Working through the room in sections over several visits keeps you trading.
Which is the strongest possible argument for the point below: the job spans weeks, and the dye lot will not.
What pushes the number up
- Channel or tufted backs. The biggest single variable in the whole job. Vertical channels take 30% to 50% more than a flat back of the same size, and deep button tufting can take more than that. Mock one channel up in scrap and measure what it actually consumes before you order the run.
- Piping and welt cut from the same vinyl comes off the yardage, and more of it if it is cut on the bias.
- Two-tone designs. Two colours means two partial widths and much worse nesting. Budget close to a full yard of the accent even when the finished area is small.
- Directional or patterned material. Every panel has to run the same way, which kills nesting. Add 15% to 20%.
- Curved and radius booths. Anything with a corner unit or a rounded end needs pattern pieces rather than rectangles, and the offcuts are unusable. Add 20%.
Order the whole dining room at once
This matters more in a restaurant than anywhere else we sell into. Dye lots cannot be matched reliably later. Vinyl from a different production run of the same colour can be visibly different side by side, and a dining room puts eight or ten booths in one sightline under identical lighting. A mismatch that would be invisible on a single boat seat is obvious across a room.
If you are phasing the work, buy all the material up front and store it, even if the booths get covered over three months. Running short in week six means either a visible shade break or re-ordering the whole lot.
Buy contract grade, not marine
A booth is the highest-cycle seating in commercial furniture. People slide across it rather than sitting straight down, and it gets wiped with sanitizer several times a day. The material needs to be contract grade, which means published abrasion figures and published fire ratings rather than a vague durability claim.
Two things to confirm before you buy. First, the fire ratings: CAL TB 117-2013 and NFPA 260 Class 1 are what an inspector or a specifier will ask for, and Pinnacle, Spirit Millennium and Silvertex all carry both. Second, cleanability: kitchens mean grease, and dining rooms mean sanitizer. Check what the manufacturer actually approves rather than assuming, and read our guide on what bleach cleanable means before anyone reaches for a spray bottle.
On abrasion, Pinnacle and Spirit Millennium both test at 1,500,000 double rubs. For booth seating that is the number to look for.
If you want a stitched pattern
Diamond and channel patterns on booth backs are usually built as an insert with plain vinyl borders rather than stitched edge to edge. A CNC sewn panel suits a booth back well, and it removes the hardest part of the job, which is keeping stitch spacing consistent across a wide flat surface at eye level. Plan the yardage as one panel per back, plus plain vinyl for the borders, the wrap and the seats.
Before you order
Get samples and look at them in the dining room under the lights that will actually be there. Restaurant lighting is warm, dim and nothing like a screen or a warehouse, and a colour that reads rich under halogen can read muddy under LED.
Send us the booth count and dimensions and we will work the yardage with you before you commit to a number. Cut by the yard, no minimums, samples $5, ships in one to two business days when in stock from High Point, North Carolina.