Blog posts tagged with 'chairs'

National Event Supply offers an impressive range of chair dollies to make transporting our chairs relatively easy. The three chair dollies I would like to focus on today are our Folding Chair Cart, Blow-Mold Folding Chair Cart, and our brand new Chiavari Chair Dolly.

We have been offering our basic Folding Chair Cart for a number of years now. It is made of tough black powder coated steel allowing it to stand up to daily use with ease. This folding chair cart includes two locking and swiveling wheels that make it easy to maneuver the cart even with a heavy load. Additionally the locking wheels allow you to keep the chair cart in one place when loading or when it is not in use, preventing a hazardous run away chair cart. To help you secure your heavy load while in transit our folding chair cart has four tie down points that make it easy to strap down the load. The folding chair cart can be used to move or store both the NES Reliable Plastic Folding Chairs (about 50pcs) as well as the NES Reliable White Resin Folding Chairs (about 30pcs).

Our Blow-Mold Folding Chair Cart is a relatively new item for us as we have been selling this item since late 2011. It is made of a light grey powder coated steel that is very similar in colour to the blow-mold chair and table frames. It features upright support bars that allow you to stack the blow-mold stacking chairs without the risk of them falling over. The Blow-Mold Folding Chair Cart has four locking and swiveling wheels to help with maneuverability. This cart will hold 30 - NES Reliable Blow-Mold Folding Chairs making effective use of storage space.

Click to enlarge pictures.

National Event Supply’ newest chair dolly addition is our Chiavari Chair Dolly. We have been carrying our NES Reliable Resin Chiavari Chairs for over 2 years now and with their success came the interest in a chair dolly to transport them. The cart has two pneumatic wheels to help absorb bumps and is made of red powder coated steel for added durability. The flip down lift bar makes it easy for you to quickly pick up and move resin or wood chiavari chairs.

In 1807, Giuseppe Gaetano Descalzi from Chiavari, Italy was asked by the president of the Economic Society of Chiavari to rework some chairs. The result was the Chiavari Chair. And so, a chair that would change special events was born!

Although they are often mistakenly spelled Chivari Chairs, there is no mistaking their popularity in modern media. From award shows to reality competitions, Chiavari Chairs are popping up all over your television. Whenever a movie or tv show wants to imply elegance, class, or sophistication at the event they are filming, they lean on Chiavari Chairs. And there has been spillover from the media into reality. Chiavari Chairs are quickly becoming the Chair that brides and event planners clamour for.

Available in numerous colours and materials, it can be daunting to pick a Chiavari chair that will get you your best Return on Investment. Do you go with a standard white resin Chiavari chair knowing that it will be easy to decorate and is suitable for any environment, or do you go with natural wood Chiavari Chair in your more rustic facility.

Five things to know before investing in Chiavari Chairs:

1. Resin Chiavari Chairs that are factory assembled will be the clear winner in the strength category. Depending on their structure, some factory-assembled Resin Chiavari chairs are rated for drop tests of above 300lbs and can hold up to 1000lbs of static weight

2. Wood Chiavari Chairs can look more natural than their resin counterparts. Because they are made of wood that has been stained using furniture grade lacquers, some people find that wood chiavari chairs look more natural than their resin counterparts.

3. Aluminum Chiavari Chairs need a plywood-base cushion or you can warp the seat. Aluminum Chiavari Chairs need cushions because aluminum chairs are designed to be used only with something that provides support. If manufacturers were to manufacture aluminum Chiavari Chairs with seats thick enough to support the weight of a person, the chairs would be very expensive.

4. Knockdown chairs are cheap to ship but expensive to maintain. Knockdown chairs require constant maintenance to keep Chiavari Chairs from becoming wobbly. After every event you should be making sure that all screws or bolts are tight so that a chair doesn't collapse under a customer. Factory assembled chairs are designed to be put together forever, and use fasteners that their customers don't have.

5. Regardless of the Chiavari Chair material, these chairs are incredibly versatile and have unlimited decor options. With Chiavari Chairs you can change out chair cushions; use different coloured chair covers or sashes; or add bows in order to make the Chair fit the decor. The only limit is your imagination when it comes to decorating these chairs.

Event rental companies, banquet halls, party planners are all realizing the advantages of having Chiavari chairs available. As Fuzion Banquets, wrote:

"We had been receiving numerous requests for Chiavari Chairs for quite some time and now that we have them available in our inventory, we are seeing an increase in our bookings. The new Resin Chiavari Chairs allows us to meet our customers' needs without adding the additional time and expense needed to maintain a large inventory of Wood Chiavari Chairs."

Want to learn more about this fabulous chair and perhaps even see it yourself? Stop by our showroom, contact us for more information about National Event Supply’s Chiavari Chairs, or if you're not ready to speak with one of our sales representatives, request a physical copy of our table and chair catalogue.

Since I started working at National Event Supply in 2010, we've shipped products across Canada and the United States. We've shipped tables and chairs to Nunavut in the North, and Aruba in the South. We've shipped dinnerware and cutlery to Vancouver, BC and St. John's Newfoundland. Most of the time, there are no problems. The products arrive on time, with no damage. On other occasions, products are lost or are damaged in transit.

When we find out that products are damaged in transit, we typically file a claim with the shipping company. As part of the claims process, the shipping company will refer to the bill of lading. If the customer has signed the bill of lading and has not indicated that there was any damage, the shipping company will typically deny the claim, as there was no damage indicated. This is why skids that ship from our warehouse in Toronto now have stickers on them that read "Inspect for Damage Before Accepting". But what should you be looking for?

4 Things to Look for Before Signing for your Order

Is the plastic skid wrap still intact?

National Event Supply wraps all skids in plastic wrap. For orders coming out of our Mississauga warehouse, we use a black wrap. Indianapolis and Vancouver both use clear wrap. The wrap should be tightly pulled around the products, and there should not be any tears or rips.

Is the pallet damaged?

If the pallet is falling apart or has noticeable damage, take a closer look at the whole skid. It could be that the skid was damaged while it was being loaded or unloaded at the shippers' depots.

Are there any dents or indentations on any of the boxes?

Take a look at the boxes on the skid. If there are holes or a corner is bashed in, then the skid may have been damaged in transit.

Is the skid leaning to one side, or does it look like it could topple over?

If the contents have shifted during shipping, there is a chance that the products within may be damaged.

Click to enlarge pictures.

What to Do if Your Order Arrives Damaged

If you discover that your order is potentially damaged in the course of your inspection, here is what you should do:

Take pictures of the damage while the driver is there. If you can take pictures of the skid on the truck that's even better.

This allows us to show the carrier that the product was damaged while they were responsible for it. It is important that the pictures of the skid are taken before the skid is broken down.

Write down on the Bill of Lading the exact damage that you have discovered and that you will be filing a claim

Be as specific as possible. If the corner is bashed in on the box that is third from the bottom, write that down. The more detail that we can give the shipping company claims department the better. Write down all the damage that you document with pictures.

Don't use the damaged product. Leave it in its box.

If the product is damaged, then you cannot use it. Let us know so that we can get replacement product out to you. Also, make sure that you keep the damaged product in its box at your facility so that if the claims adjuster wants to inspect it he can. If you return the product to us, the claims adjuster can dismiss the claim

Let us know and we will start the claims procedure.

The sooner you email or call us and let us know about the damage, the sooner we can get the ball rolling on the claims process. We'll need the photos that you have taken so we can give them to the shipping company and we'll need to know what happened when the shipping company arrived with your product.

As I wrote earlier, most of the time nothing goes wrong, the products arrive on time and in pristine condition. For those times that they don't however, it is important that you know what you're signing for. It's important to "Inspect for Damage Before Accepting".

Early September typically means the end of summer and cooler weather, but we had a gorgeous day at the CRA Ontario Golf Tournament at the Hawkridge Golf Club in Orillia. This was the first year that the Hawkridge Golf Club held the event, and they did an incredible job hosting the CRA. As with previous year's tournaments, it was a shotgun 'bestball' tournament with members and suppliers teeing off from every hole on the course at 11:00am.

Bill Winslade and I represented National Event Supply at this year’s event as Dennis was in Alberta visiting customers after exhibiting in the Alberta Foodservice Expo. This year the National Event Supply team played with Brian from Texada Software, another rental industry supplier. Texada Software provides rental companies with a full software solution that can be hosted internally or licensed as Software as a Service. Since we played as a threesome we had the luxury of having an “extra” shot to share between the three of us. However, Brian is such a good golfer that we found we only used the extra shot about 50% of the time. Unlike last year (and thanks in most part to Brian) our score was a very competitive 8 under par. Among the many highlights during the day was Bill almost sinking a 50ft putt, and Brian getting lucky by having his ball pop out of the sand trap and onto the green.

We would like to thank the CRA Ontario Members that worked hard to organize this great event. We hope to see you all out on the course for next year’s event!

The Alberta Foodservice Expo kicked off at 11am on Sunday and there was a steady flow of visitors to our booth along with the many cooking activities on the main culinary stage.

Shortly after the show opening, Richard Toll, the Owner/Executive Chef of ASNA Cooks, stopped by to introduce himself. Richard is actively involved in the Edmonton and Alberta Culinary scene, and on Sunday was one of the judges for the culinary competitions taking place centre stage, right in front of our booth. Richard was also the winner of the Edmonton Iron Chef Competition back in April 2012. We gave him a quick preview of our porcelain products including our very popular Quadrato Dinnerware, our heavy-duty Hotelier Dinnerware, and our extensive range of porcelain platters and bowls. He was also quite interested in some of our 18/10 stainless steel cutlery lines. Richard was excited to discover the possibilities National Event Supply provides to dramatically reduce his porcelain and cutlery purchasing costs. We saw Richard later on when he modelled some new chef uniforms in the fashion show that was sponsored by Canadian Linen & Uniform Service.

Not long after Richard left our booth, we had DJ Parkin, the General Manager of Fandango’s Live Entertainment Saloon, stop by to check out our newest porcelain products along with our best sellers. They’ve been working hard doing renovations at 12912 – 50th Street NW in Edmonton for a little more than 5 months as you can see from their Facebook page, and it looks like they are really close to opening up their new live entertainment saloon. They did have enough time to come and checkout the 2012 Alberta Foodservice Expo though. Congratulations to DJ & Leigh, you guys are so close to your opening after many months of hard work I am sure you can almost taste the beer beginning to flow!

The Apprentice Level Competition took place from 11:15am to 12:15pm on Sunday, while the Team Competition took place later in the afternoon from 2:45pm to 4:45pm. We were honoured to be able to help sponsor the event by providing our most popular selling line of flatware, our Maria line of 18/10 stainless steel cutlery. This line was used by the judges to perform their sample tastings of each of the competitors dishes. In the picture are Judges (from left to right) Chef Doreen Prei (Zinc Restaurant), Chef Richard Toll (ASNA Cooks) and Chef Allana (CCFCC Edmonton).

As we moved into the afternoon, it became apparent to the event organizers they would be needing additional chairs to seat some extra judges that were needed for the Team Competition, so we were pleased to be able to provide Donna Dooher, the Chair of the CRFA, and Adam Saunders, Alberta Membership Sales, with a Silver and a Black Resin Chiavari Chair to help pull off the ‘Event nature’ of the competition. We also provided some of our new wine glasses from our Eclisse line of Stemware to help with the presentation of some very fancy desserts the competitors were making.

Donna Dooher is not only the current Chair of the CRFA but is also a very accomplished Chef and business owner. Here’s a write up and a picture that does Donna much more justice than my quick snapshot prior to the culinary competition at the Alberta Foodservice show. She is also one of the featured Chefs in the ‘I am Restaurant’ video on the front page of the CRFA website.

At the conclusion of the show, attendees, competing chefs and exhibitors were invited to a cocktail and awards presentation party hosted by Chuck Nervick, Senior VP of MediaEdge Communications and Garth Whyte, President & CEO of the CRFA. Prior to the awards presentation, Garth Whyte gave a brief presentation on the significance of the Restaurant sector in Canada. Some of the interesting facts he talked about were: 1.1 million Canadians work in restaurants across Canada with another 260,000 in spinoff jobs, 1 in 4 Canadian will work in the Hospitality Foodservice sector at some point in their life, restaurants contribute 4% to the Canadian GDP and probably the most significant, 18 million Canadians go to a restaurant every day.

All in all it was a very good first day for National Event Supply at the 2012 Alberta Foodservice show.