Rented tableware can ease burden for holiday hosts

Many years ago, my sister and I served Thanksgiving dinner to a group of friends, using a closet door as a table. It was the first Thanksgiving we had ever hosted, so all our attention had been focused on the food. But once the turkey was in the oven, we realized that eight were coming to dinner, while her dining table had room for only four. Putting the closet door on top of the table to extend it was her idea. We had it off its hinges in a snap, but neither of us could quite figure out how to remove the knob. She airily dismissed the problem: "Never mind. We'll just decorate it."

Holiday entertaining can quickly exhaust even the most well-equipped home. You may have place settings for 12, but what about chairs? Last Thanksgiving, I had dinner at a friend's house, and, along with several side dishes, I brought four of my dining-room chairs. Guests have been known to come to my house bearing folding chairs, a coffee urn, platters or wine glasses. And even though we own a dining-room table with two leaves, we recently acquired a card table for when we entertain.

Packing the house with friends and family at holiday time is an excuse to bring out the china, crystal and silver wedding gifts or heirlooms that seldom get used the rest of the year. But when the number of guests exceeds eight or 10, many of us resort to paper or plastic table settings.

Disposables are cheap and make clean-up as easy as stuffing a garbage bag, but they create an enormous amount of garbage. And even the sturdiest paper plate becomes precarious when it's loaded with food and balanced on a lap or in your hand. Plus, it's simply not as aesthetically pleasing to eat with a plastic fork or drink wine from a plastic cup.

Last year, for our annual holiday party, my husband and I decided to rent four dozen wine glasses. At 38 cents each, the total cost with tax was about $20. The day before the party, we picked up two plastic-wrapped crates of stemware. After the party, all we had to do was rinse and return them; the rental company put them through their commercial dishwasher. The experience opened my eyes to the wonders of rentals.

Contemplating a whole roast suckling pig for your holiday table? You can rent a backyard rotisserie for $75 that will do the job. Want to wow the kids? Rent a snow-cone or cotton-candy machine for $47. Having a martini party? You can rent all the glasses you need for just 38 to 42 cents each. Need champagne flutes for New Year's Eve? They'll run you 45 to 55 cents each (a bit more if you want crystal). You can even rent the bar — a 4-foot black granite-topped bar will set you back $39.50 at Alexander Party Rentals.

The party rental business burgeoned during the last decade, says Pamela Thorn, manager of Alexander. "At first it was very basic stuff. Now there is more demand for things like specialty linens, satin napkins, gold charger plates. People are putting a little more money into presentation."

Rick Hedges has spent 36 years with Millers Rent-All, a full service rental company founded in 1959. He noticed things beginning to change in party rentals around 1989: "We used to stock only one china pattern. Now we have a lot more choices, not only of patterns, but colors and shapes too. We listen to our caterers. Tents have gotten bigger, too. Once we only stocked 10-by-10-foot tents. Now they ago up to 30-by-90 feet."

A walk through Miller's Edmonds showroom or Alexander's warehouse near Southcenter (they also have showrooms in Seattle and on the Eastside) is like wandering through a theater prop room. There are wedding arches and gazebos, chafing dishes and candelabras, china, silver and glassware, tables and chairs, even highchairs and rollaway beds for guests who are spending the night.

Linen is the most popular party rental category at Millers. "No one wants to wash and iron linens," says Hedges, "and it costs about the same to have your own tablecloth professionally laundered as it does to rent one." A 90-inch round or 120-by-72-inch rectangular tablecloth in assorted colors rents for about $10.

Klaudia Keller, a former catering salesperson for Consolidated Restaurants, has built an entire business around renting table linens. She started Choice Linens about 10 years ago after working on a party thrown by Paramount Pictures at Union Station. When she learned that all the linens for the event had been flown in from a company in Washington, D.C. she knew she had found her niche. "I started sewing tablecloths in my bedroom, and called all my catering friends," she said.

Today she employs a seamstress and has a Belltown showroom draped in lush fabrics, where clients come, many with plate in hand, to dress their tables. "The rental industry has become so sophisticated," says Keller, "We really can create a mood or transform your home."

She stocks about 75 patterns that coordinate with hem-stitched napkins. Prices average $25 apiece for tablecloths, $2.50 each for napkins. Matching chair covers can complete the effect. Other accoutrements include napkin ties, metal charger plates, linen cocktail napkins and fingertip towels for the powder room. Party rental prices usually include a day to pick up, a day of use and a day to return.

Rental companies typically require deposits, and most have policies that say you will be charged if items are lost or damaged.

Keller says she has occasionally had to charge clients for lost linens, but rarely for stains, thanks to Lynnwood launderer Joe Scofield of Snow White Linen. "Joe is 50 percent of our success. He's the stain-master," Keller says. Inspired in part by Choice Linens, Scofield added linen rentals to his bundle-drop and coin-operated laundry businesses. "We do a lower-end rental business than Klaudia," says Scofield, "but I buy good-quality fabric that will hold up to two or three washings a week."

"Breakage isn't a big issue," says Alexander's Thorn, "but if you break, you pay. Mostly we see shortages. Sometimes when people use paper plates with rented silverware, the utensils accidentally get thrown away."

Rental companies stock china and flatware in plain or fancy patterns. At AA Party Rentals in Mountlake Terrace, you'll find plates in traditional white or ivory, clear glass, matte black and even triangular plates, priced from 42 to 70 cents each. Silver-plated or gold flatware runs 45 cents apiece; stainless steel costs less, with many patterns available for 30 to 36 cents apiece.

Demand for china lags behind linen, glassware and flatware rentals, perhaps because quality paper and plastic plates and cups are inexpensive and attractive.

When Janet Beeck of Des Moines was planning her daughter's Renaissance-themed wedding, last month, she rented linens, champagne flutes and silverware, but bought plastic buffet plates from Michael's.

Party City stores (various locations) carry half a dozen styles of reusable plastic plates in patterns that mimic fine china and crystal. The least expensive — 9-inch clear molded plastic plates — come in packs of 30 for $5.99. At the top of the line are 10½-inch gold-trimmed ivory plates that cost $9.99 for 10.

But it only costs 35 to 45 cents each to rent a 10-inch dinner plate. At Abbey Rents the choices include classic white, black, clear, or ivory with gold or platinum trim. When the party's over, you just rinse and return them.

Rentals make sense for occasional special events, but those who regularly host a crowd might find it worthwhile to own a quantity of china, glassware and flatware. At the Costco Business Center in Lynnwood, you can purchase a 12-pack of 9½-inch restaurant-quality white porcelain plates by Oneida for $22.29, or a dozen 8¼-inch plates for $16.29. Dominion stainless-steel salad or dinner forks are $1.55 a dozen, dessert spoons are $1.69 a dozen, and a 36-count case of 8½-ounce wine glasses is $69.99.

Now, if you only had a dishwasher big enough to hold it all.