Where table linen fails

Three problems, and none of them is price

Restaurant linen is judged twice a day, from two feet away, by a paying guest. What takes a cloth out of rotation is almost never the cost of buying it. It is staining, poor drape under the room lighting, or a size that never fitted the table properly in the first place.

01

Wine, oil and turmeric

Three different problems in one laundry cycle. Red wine and tea are water-borne staining that sets in cotton if it is not treated quickly. Cooking oil and ghee are oil-borne soil that polyester holds on to unless it is washed warm with the right detergent. Turmeric is a dye, not a soil. It will bind to cotton and it fades with light rather than with washing. A high-turn dining room is usually specified in spun polyester for exactly this reason, and cotton is kept for covers where the linen is changed less aggressively.

02

Drape under service lighting

Warm downlights are unforgiving. A cloth that stands away from the table edge, or that picks up a sheen at a low angle, reads as cheap even when the fabric is sound. Drape is a function of yarn type, cloth weight and finish: spun yarn gives a matte, cotton-like surface that falls in a soft column, while filament yarn is smoother and reflects more. Ask for a hanging sample under your own lights before you commit a whole room.

03

One room, four table shapes

Most dining rooms run rounds, rectangles and folding banquet trestles at the same time, and a cloth bought for one will hang wrong on the others. Table linen is sized from the table dimension plus twice the drop you want, so the size list has to be built from a table census, not from a catalogue. Count your tables by shape and top dimension before you ask anyone for a price.

Fabric families

Four cloths, four different jobs

There is no single best table fabric. There is the fabric that suits your covers per day, your laundry, and how close the guest sits to the cloth. These are the four families we are normally asked to quote against.

Weights, widths and constructions are set at sampling against the cloth you approve. We do not publish a stock napery specification, because table linen is made up to your sizes.

Folded lengths of natural linen and cotton upholstery fabric in ivory and stone tones — Cloth is chosen at sampling, in the hand, against your lighting and your laundry regime.

Table linen fabric families
Fabric	Hand and appearance	Where it earns its place
Spun polyester	Spun rather than filament yarn, so the surface is matte and close to cotton in the hand, often described as silk-like. Falls in a soft column, presses flat, holds a fold.	The high-turn workhorse. Strong stain release against water-borne staining, dimensionally stable through repeated commercial laundering, and it comes back from the wash ready to lay with little or no ironing.
Plain-weave polyester	Flat, even, tightly constructed; takes a crisp edge and a clean tailored seam.	Fitted covers, stretch covers and skirting for banquet trestles, buffet fronts and conference tables, where the cloth has to sit tight to a frame rather than hang loose.
Cotton	The best hand of the four, and a genuine matte finish. Absorbent, so it takes a napkin fold beautifully and behaves well against skin.	Fine dining and private rooms, where covers per day are lower and the linen is worth the extra laundry attention. Expect ironing and expect to treat stains promptly.
Poly-cotton blend	A compromise by design: softer and more absorbent than all-polyester, more stable and easier to press than all-cotton.	All-day dining, hotel breakfast rooms and banqueting, where you want a cotton-leaning look without a cotton-leaning laundry bill.

Fibre behaviour above is general guidance for the fabric type, not a tested Paragon result. Recommended care for each cloth is issued with the sample.

Sizing

Start with the drop, not with the cloth

Drop is how far the cloth hangs below the table edge. It sets the size of every cloth you buy, and it is the single decision that most changes how a room reads. Pick the drop first; the finished size follows from arithmetic.

Drop length by service style
Drop Typical industry range	Service style	What it looks like in the room
6-8 in (15-20 cm)	Casual and fast-turn dining	Sits just below the table edge. Clears chair arms and guests' laps, launders in the smallest possible cloth, and is quick to change between covers.
10-12 in (25-30 cm)	Semi-formal à la carte	The everyday restaurant drop. Enough weight of cloth to hang straight, without pooling on a guest's knee.
15 in (38 cm)	Banquet and function	Reads as an event without going to the floor. Common on long banquet trestles where chairs are pushed in between services.
29-30 in (74-76 cm)	Floor length	Hem just clears the floor and hides the table legs and frame entirely: weddings, gala dinners, buffet and display tables.

Typical industry range. Exact specification confirmed at sampling. A floor-length drop is set by your table height, so measure the table rather than assuming the band above.

How to measure a rectangular table

Measure the top only, not the frame. Then:

cloth length = table length + (2 × drop)
cloth width = table width + (2 × drop)

A 180 × 90 cm trestle with a 30 cm drop therefore takes a 240 × 150 cm cloth. Corners hang as points on a rectangular cloth; if that is not the look you want, ask for a rounded-corner or fitted make-up instead.

How to measure a round table

Measure the diameter across the widest point of the top. Then:

cloth diameter = table diameter + (2 × drop)

A 150 cm round with a 30 cm drop takes a 210 cm round cloth. A square cloth on a round table gives four hanging points and four short edges: deliberate on a bistro table, untidy on a banquet round. If your rounds vary by a few centimetres between suppliers, size to the largest and let the smaller ones hang slightly longer.

Napkins, runners and overlays

The napkin is the piece the guest actually touches

It is also the piece you lose most of, so size and count matter. Napkin size drives the fold: a tall pocket or bishop's-mitre fold needs a larger square than a simple envelope on a side plate. Decide the fold and the size together.

Napkin sizes
Napkin	Finished size Typical industry range	Service
Cocktail / beverage	25 × 25 cm (10 × 10 in)	Bar, drinks reception, canapés.
Luncheon	40 × 40 cm (16 × 16 in)	Day service, café covers, room service trays.
Dinner	50 × 50 cm (20 × 20 in)	The standard à la carte cover.
Banquet	55 × 55 cm (22 × 22 in)	Banqueting and functions, where the fold is part of the setting.
Oversize / buffet	60 × 60 cm (24 × 24 in)	Large-format folds, long service, lap cover at a gala.

Typical industry range. Exact specification confirmed at sampling. Hem style is a separate decision: a narrow rolled hem for lighter cloths, a mitred corner hem where the napkin is folded upright and the corner is visible.

Runners and overlays

A runner is sized from the table length plus the overhang you want at each end, and its width is set by what sits on the table: cover plates, a centrepiece, or nothing at all. An overlay is a second, shorter cloth laid over a base cloth: it takes most of the wear in a banqueting room, so the base cloth stays in service longer and your laundry volume drops.

Fitted and skirted covers

Buffet fronts, registration desks and conference trestles are best made as fitted covers in plain-weave polyester, cut to a specific frame with a stitched or elasticated edge. Give us the frame dimensions and a photograph of the table, and tell us whether the back of the table is seen: an open-backed cover uses less cloth and is easier to fit over a stack of boxes.

How this is supplied

Made to your specification, not picked from a shelf

Be clear about what we can and cannot show you. Paragon's documented product photography is bed and bath linen: folded sheets, satin-stripe hotel sets, terry towels and bath mats. We do not publish a stock napery catalogue, and we are not going to illustrate this page with someone else's dining room.

Table linen is made up to the customer's specification: your cloth, your finished sizes, your hem, your colour reference and, if you want it, your name woven or printed into the label. For a restaurant that is the right way round, because no two dining rooms share a table plan.

Weaving and knitting happen in-house. Yarn is woven or knitted into fabric with careful attention to maintaining the integrity of the fibre, and production is guided by defined protocols, quality controls and measurable benchmarks. Our processes are structured to meet international sourcing and compliance requirements.

Home & table linen

House linen you prefer. Paragon Textile Company

What we can confirm today
Composition	Spun polyester, plain-weave polyester, cotton or poly-cotton, selected with you at sampling.
Cloth weight	On request
Fabric width	On request
Finished sizes	Made to your table census and chosen drop.
Hem and make-up	On request
Colours	White and cream from stock. Other shades matched to a Pantone reference on order.
Branding	Woven or printed label, or an embroidered mark, to your artwork.
Payment terms	30% advance, 70% before pick-up.

Where a figure is shown as “On request”, it is because Paragon has no documented figure to publish for it yet, not because it is being withheld.

Connect now for orders

Send us the table census. We will size the linen.

List your tables by shape and top dimension, tell us the drop you want, the napkin size and roughly how many covers a day the room does. If you already have a cloth you like, send a piece of it, matching an existing cloth is easier than describing one.

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Organisations Paragon has supplied include Marriott, Saudia, DHA Islamabad-Rawalpindi and The Caring Store. Marks shown with permission; no endorsement is claimed. References

Payment terms: 30% advance, 70% before pick-up.
Table linen is cut and made to your finished sizes, no stock napery range.
White and cream from stock; other shades matched to a Pantone reference on order.
Private label, custom sizes and branding to order.
No minimum-order or lead-time figure is published. Both are confirmed with your quote.

Table Linen for Restaurants & Banqueting