Heavy Duty Upholstered Dining Chairs

Heavy Duty Upholstered Dining Chairs

Are you big and tall? Perhaps a bit on the heavier side?

If so, then you know how challenging it can be to find furniture robust enough to properly support you.

The big, well-established brands don't make things any easier because, for the most part, they focus on making furniture for the masses, which typically means furniture capable of supporting people between 250-300 pounds. That's great for them, but not so great if you happen to be heavier, and that holds true whether you're looking for a rocking chair or dining room furniture.

The good news is that while the big brands may have largely steered clear of making furniture that's actually useful to you, a variety of smaller, less well-known brands have stepped up to the plate to serve this segment of the market.

In the world of high weight capacity dining chairs, one company, in particular, has come to dominate the space: Flash Furniture.

Flash isn't a huge brand, but they've been in the furniture business for a long time, and their products frequently appear in our roundup reviews where they steal the thunder regularly from brands much better established than they are.

The company makes a brand of furniture called the Hercules line, which is uniformly excellent and designed explicitly with bigger, taller, and heavier folks in mind. Not only does the Hercules product lineup look great, but it's also incredibly rugged and durable, and most importantly, it supports generous amounts of user weight that far exceed what most larger brands are offering.

We've scoured the internet to find the best high weight capacity dining chairs on the market today, and unsurprisingly, most of the products we found were from the Hercules line. We evaluated the best of the best against each other, and during that process, a clear winner emerged.

In this roundup, we'll introduce you to the overall winner and tell you about the other close contenders our winner competed against. Before we do that, though, let's begin with a high-level view of all the models that wound up on our shortlist for consideration.

Best High Weight Capacity Dining Chairs 2021 Comparison

Best High Weight Capacity Dining Chairs - Top Pick

Flash Furniture Slat Back

OUR RATING
PRICE	$$
PROS	Conventional, timeless styling, ruggedly built, reasonably comfortable, capable of supporting a lot of weight, and offered in a variety of configurations.
CONS	None.
OUR VERDICT	Highly recommended.

More Specifications...

Overall Dimensions	20.8" x 16.8" x 34.5".
Seat	Comes in sculpted wood and vinyl padded configurations.
Max. Supported Weight	800 pounds.

Best High Weight Capacity Dining Chairs - 2nd Place

Flash Furniture Ladderback

OUR RATING
PRICE	$$
PROS	Conventional styling, solidly built, reasonably comfortable, supports a lot of weight, offered in numerous styles (though less than our top pick), and frequently found on sale where it's offered at a deep discount.
CONS	The seat isn't as deep as we'd like to see on a chair built for larger folk.
OUR VERDICT	Highly recommended.

More Specifications...

Overall Dimensions	20" x 17.5" x 33.8".
Seat	Comes in sculpted wood and vinyl padded configurations.
Max. Supported Weight	800 pounds.

Best High Weight Capacity Dining Chairs - 3rd Place

Luckyermore Dining Chair

OUR RATING
PRICE	$
PROS	Most comfortable chair in the lineup. Well-padded and ergonomically designed. Fun retro look.
CONS	Only barely meets our minimum weight threshold. The retro styling won't appeal to everyone.
OUR VERDICT	Provisionally recommended.

More Specifications...

Overall Dimensions	15" x 17.5" x 34".
Seat	Vinyl padded (with 5" of padding!).
Max. Supported Weight	400 pounds.

Best High Weight Capacity Dining Chairs - 4th Place

Flash Furniture X-Back

OUR RATING
PRICE	$ ½
PROS	Sleek, industrial look. Rugged and handsome. Offered in a variety of styles.
CONS	Not everyone will appreciate the industrial aesthetic.
OUR VERDICT	Provisionally recommended.

More Specifications...

Overall Dimensions	17" x 16.5" x 32.2".
Seat	Comes in sculpted wood and vinyl padded configurations.
Max. Supported Weight	500 pounds.

Best High Weight Capacity Dining Chairs - Honourable Mention

Flash Furniture King Louis Dining

OUR RATING
PRICE	$
PROS	Highest supported weight of any chair on the list. More comfortable than our top picks.
CONS	The elegant styling is paired with resin as a building material which we find off-putting. Not everyone will appreciate the styling.
OUR VERDICT	Provisionally recommended.

More Specifications...

Overall Dimensions	19.75" x 20" x 39".
Seat	Vinyl padded resin.
Max. Supported Weight	900 pounds! (best in class).

* While aesthetics is a matter of taste, aesthetic flexibility is a measure of how easily a given design would fit into a wide range of home décor schemes.

** Brand Reliability is a measure of the strength and longevity of the brand, which by extension, is a measure of the level of support you can expect.

Author's Note:

​Before we take a look at the products we considered in this review, I wanted to take a moment to say that, as a big and tall person myself (6'6" tall and weighing in at 340 pounds), I have a vested interest in this, and the other "high weight capacity" roundups I've been writing for The Chair Institute. I'm in the same boat you are. Any time I find myself sitting on "regular-sized" furniture, I feel as though I'm sitting on a toy, so I had a personal stake in writing this piece!

Selection Criteria

Given the title of this review, naturally, our primary concern was with locating good quality, high weight capacity dining chairs. However, "high weight capacity" is a squishy term that can mean pretty much anything you want it to, so let's get more specific than that.

Given that conventional dining room furniture tops out at around 300-pounds of supported weight, we set our minimum threshold at 400-pounds, with more obviously being better. In addition to that, we wanted to find good looking, versatile furniture, but of course, everyone's tastes and preferences will differ.

To solve that, our top two picks are more conventionally designed pieces, while the bottom three each boast a very different aesthetic. These pieces are naturally more narrowly targeted and have a smaller target market, but if you happen to be in it, then one of those pieces will likely rank higher in your mind. That's fine, and the very reason we wanted to include more than just our overall top pick; more options are always better!

Our Top Pick – Flash Furniture Slat Back Dining Chair

Flash Furniture Slat Back Dining Chair
Value
Comfort
Aesthetic Flexibility*
Brand Reliability**
3.7 Summary A classic, timeless design, offered in a variety of options and capable of supporting a tremendous amount of user weight. Recommended for anyone with bigger, taller people living in their home.  These are awesome chairs.

This is a magnificent high weight capacity dining chair that hits all the right notes for us. It supports a generous amount of user weight, is incredibly rugged and well-built, and features a timeless design that looks great in just about any setting. Even better, it's offered in a wide range of finishes, and you can order yours with either wooden seats, or black or burgundy vinyl, stretched over a modest amount of foam padding.

Flash markets these chairs primarily to restaurants, selling them in bulk, but they also aim a portion of their marketing effort at individual consumers, selling them in pairs, or even individually, if you only need one chair.

Of the available options, we regard the wooden seat variants to be of higher overall quality, being longer-lasting and requiring less upkeep and maintenance, but the padded variants are more comfortable.

Normally, we'd have negative things to say about the fact that the upholstery is vinyl, but this is one of the times where vinyl actually makes a lot of sense. This is true for a few different reasons, but the big ones are these:

First, since vinyl is an inexpensive upholstery option, Flash is able to keep the price of these chairs relatively low, passing the savings onto you, the consumer. Second, although vinyl ages poorly and begins peeling and cracking under the strain of repeated use, most people don't spend tons of time sitting in their dining chairs.

They're occasional seating, and as such, the vinyl isn't put under the same kind of constant stress and strain as it would be if, for example, it was featured on an office or lounge chair. Given that, the vinyl upholstery here will last relatively longer and have to be replaced less often.

Granted, if you go with one of the padded seat options, the vinyl is going to wear out long before the chair frame will, but since there's not a lot of upholstery to contend with anyway, replacing it is an inexpensive way to get more life out of your sturdy dining chairs.

Specifications

Before we close out this section of our roundup review of the best high weight capacity dining chairs, let's do a quick review of the stats that define this model. Here they are:

• Overall Product Dimensions: 20.8" x 16.8" x 34.5"
• Chair Weight: 15 pounds
• Maximum Supported Weight: 800 pounds
• Seat Height: 19.25"
• Seat Width: 16.75"
• Seat Depth: 16.75"
• Seatback Dimensions: 14.75" x 17.25"

As you can see, everything about this chair is tilted toward bigger, taller, and heavier users. The seat dimensions are a little on the small side, but given that you're not likely to be spending endless hours sitting in them, that's almost never a deal-breaker. We love these chairs, and we think you will too. They are highly recommended.

Flash Furniture Ladder Back Dining Chair

Flash Furniture Ladder Back Dining Chair
Value
Comfort
Aesthetic Flexibility*
Brand Reliability**
3.7 Summary The Flash Furniture Ladder Back Dining Chair is a well-designed, great looking chair, capable of supporting an impressive amount of user weight. Recommended for bigger, taller people looking for a dining chair that can properly support them and is built to last.

On paper, the ladder back is only nominally cheaper than our top pick, the Slat Back chair. We refer to this as a budget option, though, and a great alternative to our top pick for one reason: Flash frequently offers these chairs on sale, and when they go on sale, the price drops dramatically. At the time this roundup was written, for instance, these chairs are on sale at 46% off of the regular price.

At full price,these chairs are a superb value for the money. When they're that deeply discounted, they represent one of the best values on the furniture market, which is why we feel that this model is well-deserving of its second-place ranking on our list of the best high weight capacity dining room chairs.

Specifications

Before we go further, let's do a quick stats review:

• Overall Product Dimensions: 20" x 17.5" x 33.8"
• Seat Height: 19.5"
• Seat Width: 17.5"
• Seat Depth: 14.75"
• Chair Weight: 15 pounds
• Maximum Supported Weight: 800 pounds

As you can see by the numbers, this design is functionally similar to our top pick. In our view, though, it does have one potential point of weakness that takes the form of its modest seat depth. This won't be a huge deal for most people, given that you're unlikely to spend extended periods sitting on your dining room furniture, but it could be an issue for some. It pays to take careful measurements before investing in these to be sure they'll fit you properly.

The ladder back chair is also offered in slightly fewer options than our top pick, but there are a sufficient number of options available that you'll have no trouble finding something that will blend seamlessly into your existing home décor scheme.

While we regard it as being ever so slightly inferior to our top pick, this is an unquestionably superb design that will provide you with years of reliable service with proper care (and occasional reupholstering if you opt for one of the vinyl padded variants). We highly recommend this model.

Luckyermore Dining Chair

Luckyermore Dining Chair
Value
Comfort
Aesthetic Flexibility*
Brand Reliability**
3.7 Summary If you're a fan of the show "Happy Days" or "The Brady Bunch," you need one of these Luckyermore Fun Dining Chairs. Recommended for anyone who loves the aesthetic, and weighs 400 pounds or less.

Although this large capacity dining chair didn't earn the highest overall ranking, we have to admit that it's our emotive favorite. It evokes a sense of 60's nostalgia that we just love.

On top of that, it's a surprisingly well-designed chair, offered by a company we had never even heard of before we began the research phase for this roundup review. Before we get into the particulars, let's pause to do a quick stats review:

Specifications

• Overall Product Dimensions: 15" x 17.5" x 34"
• Seat Height: 18"
• Seat Depth: 18"
• Seat Width: 16"
• Chair Weight: 25 pounds
• Maximum Supported Weight: 400 pounds

These are good numbers. The seat dimensions make the chair a natural fit for bigger and taller users, and the chair meets our minimum supported weight threshold, supporting four-hundred pounds. Curiously, it is the heaviest chair on our list, while simultaneously supporting less user weight than any other chair we considered. Even so, 400-pounds counts for our purposes, and we were happy to include it here.

The Luckyermore is much more than just the raw numbers, though. This chair offers a more comfortable seating experience than any other model we considered, boasting an impressive five inches of block foam padding wrapped up in vinyl upholstery.

The same provisos hold true here, regarding vinyl, but we will say that given the retro styling of this piece, we regard vinyl as the best possible upholstery choice for this chair. It just wouldn't look or feel authentic if it was covered with anything else.

In addition to being a well-padded chair, it's also ergonomically designed. Granted, it's easy to find office chairs with better ergonomic features, but this is literally the only large weight capacity dining chair we've found that pays any attention at all to ergonomic design, which puts this model in a class by itself. That, combined with its fun, retro styling, makes it impossible to ignore.

Of course, if you're not a fan of the sixties aesthetic, then this chair will be a non-starter for you, so although we love it, we can only give it a provisional recommendation. Now, if only they offered one in avocado green!

Flash Furniture X-Back Dining Chair

Flash Furniture X-Back Dining Chair
Value
Comfort
Aesthetic Flexibility*
Brand Reliability**
3.5 Summary The Flash Furniture X-Back Dining Chair is sleek, modern, and stylish with a vaguely industrial look, these chairs were originally designed for commercial use but would look great in homes decorated with an industrial aesthetic. Recommended for bigger, taller users who like the industrial look and feel.

Before we begin, let's continue the tradition we established early on in this review of the best large weight capacity dining chairs and take a quick look at the core stats that define this chair. Here are the basics:

• Overall Product Dimensions: 17" x 16.5" x 32.2"
• Chair Weight: 15 pounds
• Maximum Supported Weight: 500 pounds
• Seat Height: 17.25"

Although this chair is a part of Flash Furniture's Hercules product line, it doesn't support as much user weight as the other Flash Furniture chairs we feature in this roundup. Even so, five-hundred pounds is nothing to sneeze at and should be just fine for most bigger, taller, heavier users.

The frame of the chair is metal, coated with a protectant that gives it a glossy finish that protects it from scratches, scuffs, and dings, and the seat can be ordered in either wood or vinyl upholstery (black or burgundy) with a moderate amount of foam padding.

There's not a ton of padding present, but it's sufficient to provide a comfortable seating experience for short periods. In general, we regard the wooden seats to be slightly superior to their vinyl-clad counterparts for the same reasons we've mentioned previously, but both are quite good and offer more comfort than you might expect.

Like the other heavy weight capacity dining chairs we've talked about, this one is outfitted with plastic floor glides that will help protect your flooring, and the chair frame is virtually indestructible, designed to last for years.

The only potential drawback here is the industrial aesthetic, which is striking, but clearly won't be for everyone. If you're a fan of that look, and the rest of your home is decorated in a similar style, then these are a superb option. People who aren't overly fond of the industrial look and feel will be put off by them, and will no doubt look in some other direction. On that basis, we provisionally recommend the X-Back.

Honorable Mention - Flash Furniture King Louis Dining Chair

Flash Furniture King Louis Dining Chair
Value
Comfort
Aesthetic Flexibility*
Brand Reliability**
3.4 Summary The Flash Furniture King Louis Dining Chair is an elegant looking dining chair that can support an incredible amount of user weight, but looks can be deceiving. Recommended for bigger, taller, heavier users whose homes tend to be decorated in a more formal, elegant style.

This is an unusual chair in a number of ways, and even though we have some issues with it, it's such an interesting model that we didn't feel our review of dining chairs with high weight capacity would be complete if we didn't give it a mention.

The first thing to say about it is that this chair won't be for everyone. It's got a very formal, elegant styling, and if your home isn't formal and elegant, then this dining chair will look decidedly out of place. Before we get to the rest, let's do a quick review of some basic stats:

• Overall Product Dimensions: 19.75" x 20" x 39"
• Seat Width: 19.75"
• Seat Depth: 17.25"
• Back Width: 19.75"
• Back Height: 20.75"
• Chair Weight: 14 pounds
• Maximum Supported Weight: 900 pounds

The first thing to note about these numbers is that the King Louis Chair supports more user weight than any other chair mentioned in this roundup review. While few people will need a dining chair that's capable of supporting up to nine hundred pounds, if you happen to, then this heavy-duty dining chair naturally moves to the head of the line.

The rest of the numbers all support the notion that this chair was built with bigger, taller people in mind, and yet, check out the total weight. Just 14-pounds! The reason it's so light is that it's actually made of resin.

Resin is an excellent material, but typically, it's used in the construction of patio or other outdoor furniture. You don't find a lot of indoor furniture made of the stuff, and yet, Flash markets this as a dining/banquet chair.

In truth, Flash mostly sells these in bulk to companies, churches, and other organizations that host indoor/outdoor events, and in that capacity, it is superb. But they also market it to individual consumers as a dining chair, and here, we're less convinced.

The main reason behind our skepticism goes something like this: Let's say you have a very formal, elegant décor scheme in your house. If you do, then yes, the look of this chair will fit right in, but there's a catch.

If you're looking for formal, elegant dining furniture, then you probably want something that looks like this, which is made of hardwood and features top-grain leather upholstery. A high weight limit dining chair like this might fit into your décor scheme at first glance, but the moment you actually touch or sit on one of these, the jig is up.

The flip side of that coin is that they just don't make hardwood and top grain leather dining chairs that are capable of supporting large amounts of user weight. So if that's the look you want, then this chair is about your only option. If you decide you want one, you can order yours in a few different color configurations, which makes it easy to blend it with your existing home décor scheme with a minimum of difficulty.

Make no mistake: This is a very good chair, but in our view, it's also basically a niche product. If you happen to fall into that niche, then this is the chair you want, no question. If you don't, then you'll probably give this one a pass without a second thought. On that basis, we provisionally recommend it.

Final Thoughts: Best High Weight Capacity Dining Chair Roundup Review 2021

So, what's the best high weight capacity dining chair on the market today? We absolutely stand by the Flash Furniture Hercules Slat Back as our top pick, but we understand that tastes and preferences will differ. Given that, you may not agree with our conclusion. Here are some of the possible reasons that one of the other contenders might wind up being a better fit for you:

• The Flash Furniture Ladder Back is frequently offered at a deep discount, and if you're on a budget and can wait for it to go on sale, it offers one of the best values in the furniture market today.
• The Luckyermore Dining Chair features awesome retro styling. While that "look" isn't for everyone, if you're a fan, then it's unquestionably the chair you want.
• The Flash Furniture X-Back has a wonderful, modern industrial look. While it doesn't support as much weight as our top pick, 500-pounds is nothing to sneeze at and should work for most people. If your home sports an industrial décor scheme, this chair is a natural pick that will compliment it beautifully.
• And the Flash Furniture King Louis Chair caters to yet another aesthetic, boasting a more elegant and refined look. Again, this won't be for everyone, but if that's how the rest of your home is decorated, this one might be perfect for you.

At the end of the day, the real question is: "What's the best high weight capacity dining chair for you?"

The answer to that question depends largely on your personal tastes, preferences, and budget. One thing we hope, though, is that this roundup review has made the process of finding your new dining room furniture much simpler and easier!

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Heavy Duty Upholstered Dining Chairs

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