It's how we live: Formal dining is going to pieces
Credenza, server replacing full china, buffet for many consumers
By Powell Slaughter -- Furniture Today, February 8, 2004
HIGH POINT — Even as formal dining remains a mainstay on retail floors, suppliers keep tweaking the category's piece selection to accommodate changing consumer preferences.
Looks in formal dining still lean heavily toward traditional, but these days a credenza is nearly as likely to show up on a retail ticket as a full china.
"The traditional buffet and china has largely been substituted by some consumers with a credenza or server," said Stephen Giles, vice president of merchandising at Universal. "We're still selling a lot of tables and chairs, but fewer chinas to go with them. We're moving a lot more credenzas and even bar units than before."
Two years ago, Giles estimated that 75% to 80% of consumers purchasing Universal dining room bought a china. Today, it's less than 60%.
"That serving SKU became more important, and people also are using it as a freestanding piece," he said. "It's about the way people live. People are getting more interested in serving space than in china storage space."
Still, when it comes to formal dining, the look continues to be the key.
"The thing that's really selling dining room for us is the interest in the table tops — veneer treatments, borders and shape — and more comfortable chairs," Giles said. "Our best-selling formal dining rooms are still traditional, but even in our more contemporary dining, the same thing sells it."
Working with space
Credenzas and other non-traditional dining pieces also have picked up a growing share of dining room business at Legacy Classic. President Kevin O'Connor credits much of that to the number of younger adults who own their own homes.
"I think it's fair to say that with housing costs and mortgage rates the way they've been in the past couple of years, it's been very advantageous for young couples to get out of apartments and into starter homes that typically have a small dining room or great room," he said. "I think that younger customer tends to have a casual lifestyle when it comes to dining room — not casual in terms of style, necessarily, but configuration."
O'Connor said smaller homes often don't have a lot of cabinet space, leading to an ongoing need for dining room storage, often in the form of smaller china hutches, or curio chinas.
"We also sell a lot more credenzas," O'Connor said. "They offer storage underneath, but also a serving surface so people aren't going back and forth to the kitchen."
In addition to sumptuous styling, flexibility and function are keys to success in formal dining at AICO.
"We're always looking to build something extra into the pieces," said President Larry Rinaldi. "We pay a lot of attention to lighting position and lighting function. You see a lot of felt-lined drawers, but we're using velvet, with cloths to fold over silver in our buffets."
AICO also is doing big business with leaf tables, expandable in most cases to accommodate as many as 10 or 12 diners.
Favorable demographics
True formal dining's ongoing presence is a matter of demographics, said Jeff Cook, president of Magnussen Home, which expanded into the category 18 months ago.
"All you have to do is track the baby boomers," he said. "Boomers still buy bigger houses, and they like large, formal dining rooms. We're of the age where we still like to entertain…. In 12 years, when Generation Next takes over, formal dining won't be as important."
Magnussen's strongest dining room is Valenza, a European traditional collection with detailed carving on pedestals and aprons. Consumers can dress it down, however, with a baker's rack on the buffet instead of a china hutch. There also are leather chair options.
"We're still 70% chinas and 30% baker's racks, and 60-40 leg tables to round tables, but the casual way is a nice added business for us," Cook said.
Less traditional case pieces are strong sellers in Magnussen's Reflections dining room group. While definitely a master dining group, it's a more country lifestyle, casual look.
"The piece we'd call a china in Reflections has more open storage configurations than more traditional groups, and a lot of people are buying the table and chairs with a mobile bar unit and server," Cook said.
Sourcing values
Standard's expansion several years ago into step-up looks in imported case goods necessitated a presence in formal dining. The move came at a time many were predicting the category was on the way out.
"When you look at the numbers, (formal dining) isn't down for us," said Todd Evans, national sales manager. "A lot of people have vacated the category, and we've continued to develop formal dining."
Nottingham, an 18th century group, is Standard's strong seller in formal dining. The style is a core look in the category, and the pricing — $999 retail for a table and four, and $1,099 for a china — brings it well within the reach of a broad range of consumers.
Standard's formal dining grew out of its import program, which essentially created a new business and customer base to complement the company's domestic promotional case goods.
Imports and the values they offer get a lot of credit for formal dining's ongoing importance.
At HomElegance, the category helps the importer get the most out of its source plants.
"We try to keep our suppliers' plates full," said Joe Elmore, director of sales and marketing. "If we have a Chinese factory that's doing good work, we'll make maximum use of their case goods production capability."
HomElegance seeks to provide what Elmore called "turnkey product lines," with dining groups that provide a full range of choices, including 64-inch rounds and double-pedestal tables.
"We're offering more case goods options, so the perceived value of the collections is higher," he said. "Now we're doing even bigger collections: 54-inch, double-pedestal, and 170-inch tables. We aren't splitting the sale, we're offering more."
Dining room also offers importers the opportunity to pass on more value from sourced goods.
"Where you can get 20 bedrooms in a container, you get 35 dining rooms," Elmore noted.
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