Napkins
| Materials | Cotton · Linen · Cotton-Linen · Polyester · Poly-Cotton |
| Weight | 120–250 GSM |
| Size Range | 16×16″ to 22×22″ — custom sizes available |
| MOQ | 500 pcs per color · 200 pcs per design (see MOQ section below) |
| Lead Time | Sampling 7–10 days · Production 25–35 days |
| Customization | Color · Size · Hem · Stain-Resistant Finish · Logo · Packaging |
What We Can Do
Materials. Cotton — standard for restaurant and event use. Absorbent, soft against the skin, launders consistently. Linen — the premium dining napkin. Stiffer at first, softens with every wash, texture is the visual differentiator. In formal dining, the napkin is set on the lap or beside the plate — the fabric is seen and touched at close range. Cotton-linen blends — 55/45 linen-cotton balances cost, initial softness, and long-term durability. Common in mid-to-premium hotel dining. Polyester — banquet and event standard. Colorfast, wrinkle-free, fastest stain release. Not the choice for anywhere the napkin touches the face — but for a 500-person banquet where laundry turnaround is measured in hours, it’s the right call. Poly-cotton — polyester durability with a cotton-adjacent hand feel.
Weight range. 120–160 GSM for lightweight polyester banquet napkins. 160–200 GSM for standard restaurant cotton and poly-cotton. 200–250 GSM for premium linen and cotton-linen — heavier, more structured fold, better drape on the table setting.
Hem and edge finish. Folded hem — standard, clean, economical. Mitered corners — 45-degree folded corners on square napkins, a visual upgrade that costs little. Hem-stitched — decorative open-thread border, pairs with linen tablecloths. Rolled hem — narrow, delicate edge, more common in retail. Satin-stitch or embroidered edge — decorative in premium settings.
Sizes. Standard restaurant: 18×18″ to 20×20″. Cocktail/beverage: 16×16″ to 17×17″. Formal dining: 21×21″ to 22×22″. Custom and event-specific dimensions.
Color. Pantone-matched dyeing. Solid colors, yarn-dyed stripes, or border accents. White and ivory standard for hospitality. Brand-matched colors for events and branded restaurants.
Finishes. Stain-release finish — for polyester and poly-cotton, eases removal of food and wine stains. Available on request per application.
Packaging. Bulk restaurant/hotel packaging. Retail set-pack with tablecloth. Woven labels or heat-transfer logo.
Material Selection: The Smallest Piece, the Closest Contact
A napkin is the dining linen that touches skin — lips and hands, not just plates. It’s unfolded, used, crumpled, and sent to laundry at a rate of one per cover per meal. In a 200-seat restaurant doing two turns a night, that’s 400 napkins through the wash every day. The material choice has to hold up to volume while performing at close visual and tactile range.
Banquet and high-volume — polyester earns its place
Polyester at 120–160 GSM with a stain-release finish is the standard banquet napkin. Wrinkle-free out of the press means no folding labor at the laundry. Stain release on polyester is faster than on cotton — less rewash, less chemical, less reject rate. The hand feel is synthetic, but at a banquet where guests are eating, not evaluating the napkin, that trade-off is invisible.
Poly-cotton 65/35 at 150–180 GSM softens the hand feel without losing much of polyester’s laundry advantage. Common in hotel banquet operations where the dining room brand demands a step above the convention-center baseline.
Restaurants and hotel dining — cotton dominates
Cotton at 180–220 GSM in white or ivory is the standard restaurant napkin. Absorbent, soft against the mouth, bright white under dining room lighting. The hem quality matters at napkin scale — a slightly uneven hem on a tablecloth is absorbed by the overall drape; the same unevenness on a napkin next to a wine glass is visible.
Fine dining — linen, always
Linen at 200–250 GSM with hem-stitched edge. Match the tablecloth material — a linen tablecloth with a cotton napkin is a visible mismatch. Linen napkins soften with use, and the tactile experience of handling a linen napkin is part of the fine-dining service. The initial stiffness of new linen means the napkin holds a crisp fold on the table setting — a feature that cotton doesn’t match when both are freshly pressed.
Cotton-linen 55/45 at 200–220 GSM is the practical step-down — linen texture and drape with less initial stiffness, lower cost, and faster break-in. Common in premium hotel dining rooms rather than standalone Michelin-level restaurants.
Quality Control and Service
Sampling. Material, size, hem type, and finish confirmed → pre-production sample in 7–10 days. Approved → bulk production in 25–35 days.
Inspection. Third-party inspection (SGS, Intertek) available. Napkin-specific QC: hem straightness and corner consistency — a napkin with visibly uneven corners looks defective at a glance. Color matching to companion tablecloths. Size consistency across pieces in the same batch.
Testing standards:
- Size consistency: ±2% across pieces within a batch
- Hem and corner quality: Visual check — no wavy edges, corners square and consistent
- Colorfastness: AATCC 8 ≥ Grade 4, AATCC 61 ≥ Grade 4. Tested against companion tablecloth reference
- Chlorine bleach colorfastness: For white hospitality napkins — 5 bleach cycles
- Shrinkage: 100% cotton < 5%, linen blends < 4%, polyester < 2%
- Stain release: AATCC 130 — for finished fabrics
- Chemical safety: OEKO-TEX Standard 100 — available on request
MOQ: Why the Number Is What It Is
Standard MOQ is 500 pcs per colorway, minimum 200 pcs per design.
Fabric dyeing, cutting, and hemming set the floor. Napkins have proportionally more edge length relative to surface area than tablecloths — the hemming labor per piece is higher relative to the fabric cost. Below 200 pcs, setup costs inflate the unit price. Close to the threshold, we’ll work with a transparent cost discussion. Above 3,000 pcs per color, batch efficiency reduces unit cost.