Where to find the Best Restaurant Supplies in Toronto:

Each year, we at National Event Supply work with restaurants around the Greater Toronto area with respect to their restaurant supplies such as porcelain platters, bowls, porcelain dinnerware, flatware and glass stemware. And because so many folks know our thoughts (from this website) on quality products and great service, they often ask us who are some of the other restaurant equipment & supplies stores and competitors we have in the area.

We like to be as transparent as possible with our customers and because of this, here is a list of some of the companies that have a solid restaurant supply history in the Toronto area:

1. Hamilton Store Fixtures

Having been around for over 70 years, Hamilton Store Fixtures is located in west of Toronto in the Hamilton area, and specialize in restaurant supplies including glassware, cutlery, china and smallware accessories also getting into restaurant equipment and small appliances. The company also offers contract services and consulting services as well as full service distribution.

2. Nella Cutlery

Located in North York, Ontario, Nella Cutlery (also known as Nella Food Equipment & Nella Cucina) has also been around the Toronto area for many years, and service supermarkets, delicatessens, convenience stores, restaurants and casinos. They focus on food equipment, refrigeration, bar equipment, material handling & storage, espresso machines and smallwares.

3. S.t.o.p Restaurant Supply

s.t.o.p. Restaurant Supply is located in Kitchener, Ontario and Sudbury, Ontario and caters to both commercial and retail customers. While Nella Cutlery and Hamilton Store Fixtures sell larger food equipment, s.t.o.p. restaurant supply focuses on smallwares, apparel & household items.

4. European Hotel & Restaurant Imports

Another staple of the Toronto restaurant supply market over the years, European Hotel & Restaurant Imports specializes in cooking utensils, serving pieces, food equipment, glassware and storage containers but also has a very large service division as well.

So there are 4 companies to consider if you're getting quotes or pricing for your restaurant. The key to a great experience with purchasing from a restaurant supply store is:

• The durability of the product
• The value of the product
• The quality of the product

Hopefully, in your case, your experience with restaurant equipment and supplies stores will be an exceptional one.

While our primary target market has traditionally been selling wholesale event equipment such as dinnerware, flatware, folding tables & folding chairs to the party rental industry, more and more restaurants are seeing the value in extending their budgets with accessory porcelain pieces such as serveware from us.

With any company dealing in the foodservice industry – whether it be catering, banquet halls, golf courses, restaurants trying different plating options, hotels with meeting space or party rental companies – picking the right platters for food presentation is important. You want to ensure you’re presenting aesthetically pleasing food while ensuring your inventory / material costs for the platters doesn’t affect your bottom line. Add in the breakage, potential stacking or transporting issues and it can be a bit overwhelming.

This article presents an easy to view list of the pros and cons of melamine platters vs. porcelain platters.

Melamine Platters:

• Durable
• Break resistant
• Can scratch with use of sharp objects on the surface (like knives)
• Commercial dishwasher safe
• Lightweight
• Can withstand temperatures from 32°F to 220°F (0°C to 120°C) – ruling out baking / food preparation in them
• Non-microwavable
• Potential long term health risks (jury still out)
• Easy to stack
• More expensive to purchase due to material cost

Porcelain Platters:

• Durable
• Breakage occurs more frequently due to the nature of the material
• Scratch resistant
• Commercial dishwasher safe
• Heavy in comparison to melamine
• Oven safe to 400°F
• Microwave safe (unless porcelain contains metal detailing)
• Can become cumbersome to stack
• Less expensive to purchase than Melamine
• Can look better longer

As you can see, porcelain platters and melamine platters both have their place at a buffet or party; neither one can be ruled out as “better” than the other – it generally comes down to how the purchaser plans to utilize the platter and personal preference.

The National Event Supply team have their bags packed and are heading to Vancouver for the Canadian Rental Association’s BC Regional Trade show. Be sure to stop by our booth #42/43 to say “hi” and check out our new line of linens along with the other event rental inventory items we offer.

With warehouses in Vancouver, British Columbia & Mississauga, Ontario, we can quickly and cost-effectively ship our hundreds of products across Canada. Because of this, we’re able to showcase the following items at the show:

• Porcelain Platters
• Porcelain Bowls
• Porcelain Dinnerware
• Stainless Steel Flatware
• Crystal Stemware
• Plastic Folding Tables
• Wood Folding Tables
• White Resin Folding Chairs (aka White Wedding Chairs)
• And much, much more!
 

We're offering an exclusive show special only available to attendees that stop by our booth.

If you're interested in learning more about our tabletop products, download our Tabletop catalogue for details such as sizing, weight and pricing.

We look forward to seeing you January 10th / 11th at the show!

Well we’re at the end of 2013 and what better way to reflect than with a roundup of the top 10 posts from the National Event Supply Blog. Since January, we’ve produced almost 140 posts chock full of new products, education, industry news, insider knowledge, plus a chuckle or two. To ensure you haven’t missed anything, check out the most popular blog posts (most viewed by all of you) of 2013:

10) 3 Reasons to Invest in Square Dinnerware

Porcelain Dinnerware can be a tough nut to crack. Sure, you have great round plates that rent reasonably well, but so do a lot of your competitors. What you need is something that will catch your customer's eye, something that not all of your competitors have, and something that can make a statement on a tabletop. What you need is Square Dinnerware! With that said, here are three reasons why you should consider investing in square dinnerware.

Read More

9) 6 New Pieces of Porcelain

Spring shipments continue to arrive at National Event Supply. Recently we took delivery of a container of porcelain from our factory. In addition to the Quadrato Dessert Plates, the 10 inch and 12 inch Risotto Bowls, and several sizes of rectangular platters, we took delivery of 6 new pieces of porcelain that we’ve been eagerly awaiting since January of this year. Check out the 6 new pieces of porcelain added to the inventory roster.

Read More

8) Now Arriving: Resin Chiavari Chairs at our Toronto Warehouse

We know we’ve been talking about summer for a while here at National Event Supply, but can you blame us? Summer is filled with sunshine, nights spent sipping drinks on the patio enjoying a cool summer’s breeze, and spending weekends at a friend’s cabin on a lake. Summer is all about the outdoor event, and although the spring buying season is winding down, we’re still receiving new products and new stock at our Vancouver and Toronto warehouses. We just received new stock of the Resin Chiavari chairs.

Read More

7) Top 5 Restaurant Dinnerware Manufacturers

If you have ever considered purchasing porcelain for your restaurant, banquet hall, party rental, convention centre, golf course, or maybe even your house, you have probably considered purchasing from at least one of these five companies. They all offer an incredible selection of durable, commercial-quality, porcelain products and they likely have a local distributor in your area. See why these are North American leaders in Restaurant Dinnerware Supply.

Read More

6) New Products: Small Amuse Bouche Spoon & Fork

New Product Spring 2013 continues here at National Event Supply. So far this spring, we’ve introduced our New Folding Pedestal Table, our new wood Serpentine Tables, our new Wood 60inch Half-Moon tables, our new Wood Harvest Tables, and our new Polar White Dinnerware. The products just keep coming as containers arrive at our facilities in Vancouver and Toronto. And we’re still not done. We have new colours of Plastic Folding Chairs coming including Wedding White on White, Royal Blue on Grey and Black on Grey. Finally, we have some new Natural Wood Folding Chairs on order. Recently we took delivery of some cutlery that we had eagerly been awaiting.

Read More

5) New Chair – Natural Wood Folding Chair

For some time now, we have been looking for a natural wood coloured resin folding chair. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to create a beautiful looking natural wood colour chair in resin. The colours just don’t look right, and it can end up looking tacky and not up to our demanding standards. But our customers were demanding a Natural Wood Coloured Folding Chair, and so we decided that the only thing to do was to go and find a Natural Wood Folding Chair. It took a little time to find one we liked, but early last winter we found one. Today, I’m happy to formally announce our New NES Natural Wood Folding Chair.

Read More

4) National Event Supply in Vancouver

As one of Canada’s leading Party Rental suppliers, we try to make sure that we have sales representation from coast to coast across Canada. To help us with sales representation we signed a strategic sales agreement with AE Sales Group 2 years ago which gives us sales coverage in western Canada (BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Northwest Ontario) and with their partner Certified Sales we also get coverage for the Maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and PEI. Every few months I get the chance to travel with one of the AE Sales team members to do some joint customer calls in various locations across Canada. This past week I was once again in Vancouver, this time so that we could exhibit at the BC Foodservice Expo at the Vancouver Convention Centre. Since I was already in town I thought this was also a great opportunity to meet a few of our customers.

Read More

3) The BC PST, New Plastic Folding Chairs and White Resin Folding Chairs

It's hard to believe, but 2013 is now 1/3 over. All across Canada, snow is melting, grass is growing, trees are budding, and everyone is getting ready for the busy summer season. We're in the middle of our busy spring season. New products and stock are arriving every week and orders are going out our doors just as fast. Although we try to keep things in stock, sometimes we run out of chairs in a certain colour, or we run low on tables. It's always better to get your orders in early to avoid disappointing your customers. We detail the new products in the Toronto and Vancouver warehouses and the return of the BC PST.

Read More

2) NES Introduces New Plywood Folding Tables

Over the past few years we have seen increasing success with our NES Wood Folding Tables. As it is with most things, sales started slowly as people initially discovered that we had started stocking plywood folding tables. Sales continued increasing as people took a closer look at our product and discovered that we were selling a quality plywood table. As sales increased, we started getting requests from customers looking for plywood tables in other sizes. Up until recently, we were stocking 3/4″ inch plywood folding tables in the following sizes in our Toronto, Vancouver, and Indianapolis warehouses: 4-ft Rectangular Banquet Tables (30 inches wide), 6-ft Rectangular Banquet Tables (30 inches wide), 8-ft Rectangular Banquet Tables (30 inches wide), 48 inch Round Tables, 60 inch Round Tables, and 72 inch Round Tables. Now, just in time for the busy spring season, we are pleased to announce that we have added a wide range of new wood tables to our inventory. Effective immediately, we are proud to offer the following plywood tables to our customers.

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1) New Products in Vancouver – Cruiser Tables in Toronto

Spring continues to roll on here at National Event Supply. We received containers at both our Vancouver and Toronto warehouses and in each case they brought us products that we didn’t have in stock. At our Toronto Warehouse, we received a shipment of wood cruiser tables, and at our Vancouver location we received three new wood tables: NES Wood Serpentine Folding Tables, 5-ft NES Wood Half-Moon Folding Tables, and 8-ft NES Wood Folding Harvest Tables.

Read More

At National Event Supply we are constantly bringing in samples of potential new inventory items and working with existing customers on custom items they’re interested in stocking. We’ve been doing some cleanup of our showroom and warehouse and decided to get in the holiday spirit by donating a number of samples and over 250 barely used porcelain deep rectangular platters to local soup kitchens in the Greater Toronto Area and Mississauga. We had three non-profits including Good Shepherd Ministries, Syme Woolner Neighbourhood & Family Centre, and Eden Community Food Bank accept our donation.

Here is a picture of some of the items we donated:

The Executive Director of Eden Community Food Bank reached out to us to say:

"Thank you for thinking about Eden Community Food Bank for your donation. They will be put to good use in our food bank and in our new Community Learning Kitchen."
 

Eden Community Food Bank is located in Mississauga, Ontario and is a non-denominational, charitable organization, working to eliminate hunger through food distribution to qualified individuals and families living in selected areas of Mississauga, as well as providing education and advocacy services to our clients and the general public.

If you’re interested in spreading some holiday cheer by making a donation to help ensure those who need it most don’t go hungry throughout the season, please feel free to reach out to the three organizations (links above) and help them out.

The team at National Event Supply are thrilled the items can be put to good use and hope to provide more non-profits around the area additional items in the future.