You want a café that feels like a New York warehouse, with a concrete floor, black steel legs and bare light fittings. Buying everything new like the cafés in magazines would use up the budget on chairs alone. If you go used, what should you buy, for how much, and how do you choose? It’s a common question from people opening a café.
An industrial-style interior is one that, like a factory or warehouse, shows off materials such as metal, reclaimed timber and concrete, along with exposed lighting and pipework. Because it is built from a few elements (black metal, weathered wood and bare lighting), it pairs well with used materials, and pieces of different designs still hang together. Based on median prices in our stock, 20 Western-style chairs, 5 tables and 6 lights come to about 260,000 yen (shipping extra).
In this article, Tenpos Kawaguchi Interior Materials (Kawaguchi, Saitama; 1,254 m²) uses the stock listed in our online store on 4 November 2026 to explain how to choose each item and to give a sample budget for a 20-seat café.
How do you choose used materials that suit an industrial style?
Choose materials for an industrial style by material and colour. With black metal, well-worn wood and small metal accessories in place, the whole restaurant hangs together even if the pieces differ in shape and age.
| Item | What to look at | Examples from our stock (4 November 2026, incl. tax) |
|---|---|---|
| Lighting | Black fittings with visible bulbs; socket size, voltage and mounting type | Black spotlights (2,970–4,950 yen), black track light (3,300 yen), black hanging shade light (4,400 yen) |
| Chairs | Black metal legs, tubular chairs; seat height | Black tubular chairs (7,700 yen), black high-back Western-style chair (11,550 yen), black round-tube counter chair (7,700 yen) |
| Tables | Black legs with timber tops; height | Black high table (16,500 yen), round table with brown top and black legs (10,450 yen) |
| Tops and legs | Top thickness plus leg height | Solid wood tops (9,900–15,950 yen), cross-shaped table leg (5,500 yen) |
| Decor | Weathered metal or wood | Black oil drum (33,000 yen), barrels (12,100 and 33,000 yen), tin trays and cans (3,850–6,930 yen) |
| Shelving | Black-framed or open shelves | Black 6-tier decorative shelf (6,050 yen) |
* Examples listed in our online store (the Kawaguchi Interior Materials stock on Tenpos.com) on 4 November 2026. Stock changes daily, and the store also carries items not listed online.
What should you check when choosing lighting?
In an industrial-style café the light fittings themselves are part of the look, so choose on both appearance and whether they’ll work in your space. Used fittings vary in bulb socket size, voltage and mounting type, so check before buying that they suit your ceiling wiring or track.
- Mounting type: Some fit a track, some fit a ceiling connector, and some are wired directly. Direct wiring is work for a licensed electrician.
- Socket and voltage: Check that the bulbs you want will fit and that the fitting works on your supply.
- Brightness: Spotlights alone tend to leave the room dark, so combine them with lights over the tables.
How much of the lighting installation you can do yourself can be checked in the table of where to draw the line in “How to combine DIY with licensed trades”.
How do you put together chairs and tables?
In the online store, used chairs are usually listed once per model, so you can’t tell from the page how many of the same model there are. When furnishing a dining room, check before visiting or in store whether you can get the number you need of that model.
An industrial-style interior holds together even with mixed chair designs, as long as colours and materials match. If there aren’t enough of one model, you can combine several kinds of chairs with black metal legs.
You can also buy tops and legs separately and assemble tables. Our stock included solid wood tops (60 mm thick, 650–1,500 mm wide) and a cross-shaped table leg (690 mm high). The finished height is the leg height plus the top thickness, so check it together with the seat height of the chairs you’ll use.
How should floors and ceilings be finished?
Industrial-style cafés often leave the concrete floor and ceiling of a shell unit exposed. Less finishing work keeps costs down, but there are points to watch depending on the area.
- Dining-room floor: Bare concrete raises dust and absorbs stains. Decide whether to apply a hardening coat or stain-resistant finish based on how easy it will be to clean.
- Kitchen floor: Under the Enforcement Regulations of the Food Sanitation Act, floors in facilities cleaned with water must be impermeable and drain well. Make the kitchen floor meet the public health centre’s facility standards.
- Ceiling: If you leave pipes and ducts exposed without a ceiling, decide how you will clean dirt and dust off them. If you fit ceiling finishes, the interior finish restrictions of the Building Standards Act may apply.
Source: Enforcement Regulations of the Food Sanitation Act, Appended Table 19 (e-Gov law search, Japanese; checked 4 November 2026)
What does it cost to furnish a 20-seat café?
Using median prices from our online store stock (395 items as of 4 November 2026), the furniture and lighting for a 20-seat café come to the following.
| Item | Quantity | Median (incl. tax) | Subtotal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Western-style chairs (43 items, excl. counter chairs) | 20 | 8,800 yen | 176,000 yen |
| Tables (30 items, excl. Japanese-style and table legs) | 5 | 12,375 yen | 61,875 yen |
| Lighting (11 items, excl. chandeliers and Japanese-style) | 6 | 3,960 yen | 23,760 yen |
| Decor (barrel) | 1 | 12,100 yen | 12,100 yen |
| Total | 273,735 yen |
* A rough guide using the median price of each category, classified by product name. The 11 lights ranged from 2,475 to 4,950 yen. Shipping and lighting installation are not included. Whether you can get enough of the same model depends on stock.
Installing and wiring lights needs a licence, so there is a craftsman’s fee on top of the fittings. Put the money you save on used furniture into stages that need a licence and can’t be cut, such as lighting wiring, the kitchen floor and exhaust.
Start by deciding your seat count and number of lights and plugging them into the budget table. Once you can see the furniture and lighting budget, you’ll know how much is left for licensed stages such as lighting wiring and kitchen works.
How we can help with an industrial-style café
Tenpos Kawaguchi Interior Materials helps owners open by cutting purchase costs with used materials, doing what they can themselves, and bringing in licensed tradespeople only for the work that needs them.
- Match materials and colours in person: On a single 1,254 m² floor, you can set chairs, tables, lighting and decor side by side and check how the black metal and wood tones work together. Everything on the shop floor has been inspected, cleaned and repaired in our own workshop.
- Transport large decor: Even large items such as oil drums and barrels can be loaded onto trucks of up to 4 tonnes on site. For anything you can’t take, we deliver anywhere in Japan from the store (large items and some locations by arrangement).
- Hand over only the lighting wiring: We introduce craftsmen only for licensed stages such as lighting wiring (no introduction fee for clients, free quotes, and you contract and pay the craftsman directly).
- Check the layout in 3D: Create a 3D floor plan with our staff in store, free of charge (by appointment; viewed on our in-store screen, not an official drawing).
Tenpos Kawaguchi Interior Materials
3-32-24 Sakashita-cho, Kawaguchi, Saitama / Open 10:00–19:00 every day (closed over the New Year holidays)
Tel +81-48-285-2027 / Parking available (trucks up to 4 tonnes, loading on site) / Payment: cash, card or PayPay
Book a visit (materials, 3D plans) → Ask about lighting wiring →