5 Thanksgiving Table Decor Tips for Your Restaurant

Is your restaurant ready to host a bountiful Thanksgiving? Aside from a well-crafted special menu, a festive tablescape is an absolute must on Turkey Day. If you’re out of ideas, read on for some of the best Thanksgiving table decor tips and quick crafts!

Thanksgiving is quickly drawing near, but is your restaurant ready to meet up client expectations and deliver the right experience? Families, couples, friends, and other groups heading to your establishment on November 25 will expect nothing short of a special catering menu and a befitting festive atmosphere!

Yes, we know that nothing quite compares to the rush around Thanksgiving (maybe save for Christmas), but coming up with a lovely tablescape shouldn’t turn into a tedious struggle. From the tablecloth to the centerpiece, we’ll walk you through 5 helpful tips for your restaurant’s Thanksgiving table decor!

5 Essential Tips on Thanksgiving Decorations

1. Start With a Simple Theme

When we spoke about excellent fall decor ideas for restaurants, we saw that just a few effortless adjustments could achieve wonders in terms of ambiance! Every time you adjust something to your restaurant’s decor, think about the sensory experience it brings about and whether it matches the overall concept of your establishment. As long as there’s balance, feel free to play around with anything from simple rustic touches to bold but elegant modern pieces.

In short, anything goes, as long as you manage to bring about the warm and welcoming sentiment of Thanksgiving in the hearts of your diners. Here are a few ideas you can start from:

• Create a classy rustic ambiance with wooden or metallic accents.
• Use familiar harvest fall colors with pops of gold and copper.
• Focus on nature’s inner charm: mini-pumpkins, wooden pieces, produce-inspired tones.
• Consider using seasonal produce like variated gourds, figs, apples, and grapes.
• Choose foolproof color combinations for your Thanksgiving table: white and green, copper and grey, orange and white, blush pink, shades of plum, fall foliage, and generally any muted, earthy tones (reds, orange, yellows, beige).

2. Create a Worthy Centerpiece

The internet is filled with thousands and thousands of unique Thanksgiving decorations and crafts, and it comes as no surprise that most of them include a stunning centerpiece! Whether small and minimal or large and intricate, the centerpiece should be the cornerstone of your Thanksgiving tablescape. Here’s what to keep in mind:

• Experiment with woodsy elements such as lush greenery, moss, vibrant foliage, and different fall-friendly flowers (like mums, chrysanthemums, marigolds, and peonies).
• Integrate one or more festive candles of all shapes and sizes.
• Use rustic and cozy elements like dried wheat bundles, assorted gourds, Indian corn, dried beans, leaves, pinecones, and walnuts.
• When using larger produce like squash and pomegranates, place your arrangement on a wooden study base and secure all the elements to ensure nothing falls out.
• Instead of using one large centerpiece, you can also arrange the chosen pieces in smaller clusters depending on how much space you have available.
• Finally, don’t over clutter the table. You’ll want to leave plenty of room for your restaurant’s festive dishes to shine (especially that roast turkey)!

3. Use Elegant Dinnerware and Flatware

The good news is that you don’t really need to buy entirely new dinnerware sets for your Thanksgiving table décor (unless you really wish to do so). Unpretentious white dinnerware is always an elegant choice that goes well with pretty much any other color or table motif you settle for!

Now, for the flatware, you can switch to simple golden or copper-hued cutlery, which works so well with many other warm, natural tones indicative of Thanksgiving celebrations.

4. Add the Finishing Touches

Once you have decided on suitable tableware, cutlery, and perhaps a beautiful centerpiece, you can have fun with other Thanksgiving table decorations such as:

• Cloth napkins in warm tones (simple, plaid, or with a few autumnal motifs)
• Simple napkin rings (leather or metallic)
• Round woven placemats
• Thanksgiving place cards
• Craft pine cones with a few dabs of paint
• Amber goblets
• Fall foliage

Don’t forget that your entire restaurant should integrate festive elements if you’d like to achieve a truly memorable Thanksgiving ambiance. If you’re willing to put in a bit more extra dedication, then consider incorporating things like:

• Painted gourds
• Entranceway décor
• Warm tone lights
• Wall ornaments
• String lights
• Garlands with leaves, pinecones, and faux flowers

5. Focus on Seasonal Produce

Nothing showcases a restaurant’s dedication to seasonal ingredients like a full fall harvest aesthetic! If your establishment generally takes pride in using locally-sourced, seasonal produce, then make sure to showcase this quality by focusing your Thanksgiving table decor on seasonal fruits and vegetables. One quite obvious option is to create a cornucopia centerpiece somewhere in sight. After all, the horn of plenty is a well-known symbol of Thanksgiving, symbolizing a year’s lush harvest and gratitude for its blessings.

Final Thoughts

And since we’re speaking of seasonal produce, we’ve covered everything you need to know on some of the season’s best-loved staples in our latest blogs: chanterelles mushrooms, winter squash, seasonal apples, and the best potato varieties for different types of recipes. Remember that you can order the best local ingredients in time for Thanksgiving directly from our website!