John Boos Butcher Block Tables Have a Long and Storied History
For more than a century John Boos & Co. has been a pioneer in designing and manufacturing furniture for residential and commercial kitchens and dining rooms that’s as beautiful as it is functional. The company’s earliest creations – thick wooden blocks carved from Central-Illinois Sycamore trees – were used by blacksmiths who required exceptionally rugged and sturdy work tables for their heavy pounding and metal shaping. These wood blocks used by blacksmiths were predecessors to the massive butcher blocks that not long thereafter became essential tools of the trade used by meat butchers all across twentieth-century America.
Over time Boos & Co.’s product line evolved to include bakers’ tables designed for home-baking enthusiasts, corner bakeries and industrial bakers; kitchen work tables used to prepare and serve meals and to store small kitchen appliances, dinnerware and cookware; and restaurant-style dining tables in various shapes, sizes, and woods, used principally in restaurants, pubs, cafes and sandwich shops.
Never a company to rest on its laurels, John Boos strives to meet ever-changing consumer tastes with respect to kitchen and dining table design. While wood will always be the cornerstone of any dining room table, more and more of today’s most popular dining sets tend to be amalgams of one sort or another, merging multiple materials (e.g., wood and steel), multiple design styles associated with particular time periods (e.g., mid-century plus modern), or multiple geographic themes (e.g., rural and urban). In developing the John Boos Foundry Collection, the Boos design team checked the box labeled “all of the above.”
Foundry Collection Rustic Modern Dining Tables Marry Warm Wood and Cool Steel
Seeking to tap into the above-mentioned furniture design style trends, the Boos design team set out to develop Boos dining tables that meld together naturally warm wood with hard, cold steel to create a distinctive rustic modern dining table that would look equally great in homes thirty years old or newly-built; in homes in either rural or urban settings; and in homes featuring decors ranging from traditional rustic to modern industrial.
Modern Industrial Dining Tables in Two Stunning Design Styles
The Boos design team started with a classic foundation – wood table tops and steel table bases. Foundry Collection dining table tops would be butcher block of course – for which Boos & Co. is world-renowned. Offerings would include maple, walnut, cherry and oak butcher blocks constructed in edge-grain style. In edge-grain butcher block table tops, long wood strips spanning the full length of the table top are aligned parallel to one another then thermo-bonded together, edge to edge. The end result is a rugged surface with a fairly uniform look that shows off the wood’s characteristic colors and grain patterns and at the same time is pleasing to the eye.
John Boos Foundry Collection Tables Come in Pub Style and Bistro Style, and in Three Heights
The base of each Foundry Collection table consists of two steel supports connected by a second butcher block “stringer” board that adds structural stability. The steel supports are available in two very different design styles: Pub Style and Bistro Style. Each delivers a unique look and feel. Whereas the legs of Pub Style bases bow boldly outward, the legs of Bistro Style bases flow gently inward. All steel in each table base is powder-coated to enhance aesthetics and to protect the steel from nicks and scratches.
Since kitchen tables, in particular, can be used for different purposes – for dining, for mingling, or for grazing while chatting – Boos offers these modern rustic tables in three different heights. Dining-height tables are 30 inches high; countertop-height tables measure 36 inches high; and bar-height tables stand 42 inches tall.
Modern Industrial Dining Benches and Stools Round out the Line
Eschewing convention, Boos chose to round out their dining table sets with dining stools and benches, instead of chairs. Stools are offered in both design styles – Pub and Bistro – and in three heights to match table-height options, whereas benches are available only in Pub style and a single height of 18 inches. Stool and bench seats are butcher block, of course, and their supports are powder-coated steel.