Wood, Concrete, Metal or Glass? How to Choose a Bar Top That Fits Your Bar

Of all the surfaces in a bar, the top itself works the hardest. Every drink set down, every spill wiped up, every busy Friday night lands on it — and it also sets the look of the whole room. We build custom bar tops in four families of material: wood, engineered concrete, metal, and glass. There is no single best one. There is a right one for your room, your level of traffic, and how much day-to-day care you're willing to give it. Here's how the four honestly compare.

Wood: the traditional choice, without the traditional upkeep

Wood is the classic bar top material for restaurants, pubs, and home bars, and for good reason — nothing else gives a room that warmth. We work in species from classic cherry and walnut to African mahogany and zebrano, with details like an ogee edge, a Victorian bar rail, or the classic Chicago Bar Rail.

What makes our wood tops practical is the finish. Our signature Marine Finish is a permanent, waterproof, stainproof finish — tough as nails, it needs no special attention and will never need refinishing, even in the busiest establishments. It comes in sheens from soft to a high-polish, furniture-like finish. Daily cleaning is a wipe-down — a little Lemon Pledge is all our commercial customers use. The cherry top we made for the Ardsley Country Club in Westchester lives under the same finish and the same routine.

Engineered concrete: any shape, any color, one solid piece

Engineered concrete is the modern industrial choice, and the most flexible material we work with. The forms for each top are custom built for the project, so a concrete bar top can be made in any size, shape, or color — curved, blue, with decorative stainless steel inlays if that's the design. We build them with as few field joints as possible; one bakery top we delivered in Connecticut runs over ten feet in a single piece with no joints at all.

The surface is honed and oiled, which gives it its water and stain resistance, and it is smooth to the touch. Like the reactive metals, concrete evolves over the life of the bar and forms its own pattern of use. Daily care is Windex; now and then, oil it with the Concrete Dressing Oil we provide. You'll find our concrete at Paloma Restaurant in Stamford and The Granola Bar in Westport.

Metal: stainless stays put, the rest live and change

Our sheet metal bar tops come in stainless steel, zinc, pewter, bronze, and copper. Stainless is the one to choose if you want the top to look the same in ten years as the day it went in.

Zinc, pewter, bronze, and copper are reactive metals. Each is available in a matte or a patina finish, and each will develop a darker patina and its own pattern of use over time. You can let it age naturally, or polish it back toward its original finish — that choice is yours, and it can change. Daily cleaning is Windex; for a deeper clean, a metal polish like Noxon. It's the material of the classic bistro bar: we built the zinc top for Winston Restaurant here in Mt. Kisco and the patina-finish zinc bar at Manhattan's 60 Soho Hotel.

If you want a decorative edge on a metal top, look at our artisan cast metal construction. For commercial work, we pair a durable sheet metal top with a cast metal edge profile — like the 2½-inch 'H' edge on the commercial zinc bars we made for a California resort. You get the shaped, decorative edge without trying to form it from sheet metal, on a top built for heavy daily use.

Glass: the modern statement

Glass comes in two kinds. Regular glass is clean and minimal — clear, sandblasted for a frosted look, or back-painted in the color of your choice. We do custom color matching: pick a chip from the Benjamin Moore chart and we'll make a match sample for your approval before work begins.

Fusion glass is the artisanal option. Layers of glass a quarter-inch thick are fused in a kiln, which creates textures that run through the material. Every piece is one of a kind — because of that artistic nature, we can't promise an exact match to a sample. Fusion and regular glass both suit cocktail bars and home wet bars especially well.

A quick way to decide

Traditional pub or country club feel: wood. Modern industrial restaurant: concrete, or zinc. A bar that should look lived-in and gain character: zinc, copper, or pewter. A clean, modern statement piece: glass. Heavy commercial traffic: any of the four — all of them are low maintenance, and every one of these tops is working in a real restaurant or bar today.

Every bar top we sell is designed and fabricated in our shop in Mt. Kisco, NY, and delivered direct from the factory — no middlemen. You work directly with our craftsmen and engineers throughout the design and build. If you're planning a bar — at home or for a business — call me at 914-954-6071. You'll get me, Richard Brooks, not a call center. You can also reach us through the Contact Us page on this site; tell us about the project and we'll help you land on the right material.