Vintage American Style Bamboo Bar Table And Chair Set

Bamboo is a grass, and it behaves like one

Bamboo is not a timber. It has no rays and no growth rings, so it does not shrink across a width the way oak or ash does; it moves along its length instead. On a bar top that is an advantage, because the dimension that changes is the one held by the frame rather than the one you see. It also means the top does not develop the hairline cracks along the grain that a solid timber top gets when the air dries out in winter.

The trade-off is that bamboo dents rather than scratches. Glass set down hard leaves a shallow ring; a timber top would take a scratch in the same place. In a tavern that reads as patina, which is why the style survives.

The frame is timber here, and the joints are what hold it

The legs and rails are hardwood, stained to sit close to the bamboo without trying to match it exactly. Matching a grass to a timber never looks right; picking a stain two shades darker reads as deliberate. Corner blocks behind the rails stop the table racking when it is pushed across a floor that is not level.

Chairs at 750 in a room with 1050 tables

The chairs in this set are bar height, not floor height. Where the same room also has 750 tables, the floor-height version of the chair is available in the same finish, and ordering both at once keeps the dye lot together.