A restaurant or cafe with outdoor seating usually needs four kinds of fitting on one frontage: a pair of wall lanterns at the door, hanging lanterns under the verandah or canopy, short posts around the open-air tables, and taller poles where the forecourt meets the parking or the road. We cast all four families in aluminium at the Aligarh works, and Matte Black, Antique and Raw Grey run through every one of them, so a single outlet can stay in one finish from the door to the kerb.
Full ranges are listed on our pole lanterns, hanging lights and wall lights pages. Here we take one frontage apart zone by zone and name codes that suit each part of it. Sizes are copied from the product pages, height by width in inches.
Codes for each zone
| Zone | Matte Black | Antique | Raw Grey |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entrance door, one lantern each side | PWL 2509 21×8, PWL 2516 17×8, PWL 2572 16×8 | PWL 2513 26×8, PWL 2559 21×8, PWL 2518 17×8 | PWL 2805 18×9, PWL 2560 18×8 |
| Verandah, canopy or pergola over tables | PHL 2607 22×8, PHL 2624 14×5, PHL 2611 13×8 | PHL 2606 26×8, PHL 2617 15×7, PHL 2613 12×8 | PHL 2601 16×8, PHL 2619 16×7, PHL 2623 9×5 |
| Open-air seating, lawn edge and steps | PPL 5027 39×6 or 21×6, PPL 5001C 34×7, PPL 5002C 30×9 | PPL 5022 32×8, PPL 5018 29×8, PPL 5011 28×6 | PPL 5034A 38×8, PPL 5029 33×7, PPL 5028 32×7 |
| Forecourt, parking edge and road side | PPL 5024 96×10, PPL 5017 80×11, PPL 5031 70×7 | PPL 5008 108×14, PPL 5010B 64×8 | PPL 5016 84×12 |
You do not need all four rows. A cafe on a narrow market street may only have the door and a shallow canopy. A highway dhaba or a garden restaurant on the edge of town will often use every row and add gate pillar lanterns from the gate lights range on the compound wall.
The door pair
The two lanterns beside the entrance are the fittings a guest sees from closest, and they end up in most photos people take of the place. Pick them first and let the rest of the frontage follow their finish. A tall double door with a transom can carry one of the longer bodies in the table, such as PWL 2513 or PWL 2509. A single shop door in a narrow facade usually looks better with something in the 16 to 18 inch band.
Before confirming a code, draw it to scale on the elevation beside the door, using the dimension drawing on its product page. Mounting height and the gap to the door frame are covered in our guide to wall lantern mounting height. If the facade is two storeys of plain wall with the door at its centre, read large wall lanterns for tall facades as well.
Hanging lanterns over the tables
Under a verandah or pergola, the lanterns hang over people who are sitting down and over staff who are walking between chairs with trays. Keep the bottom of each lantern clear of head height wherever there is a walkway, and line the row up with the structure, one lantern centred in each bay between columns or rafters, so it reads as part of the building. Our notes on porch pendant drop and clearance and hanging lantern size by ceiling height give the working dimensions.
Low tin or polycarbonate canopies suit the compact bodies: PHL 2623 at 9×5, PHL 2611 and PHL 2613 at around 13×8. A double-height porch or a tall RCC verandah can take PHL 2607 or PHL 2606. A seated diner looks across the room at lantern height more than a passer-by does, so frosted glass is worth considering here even if the door pair uses clear. For the difference in glare and look, see clear or frosted lantern glass.
Short posts around open-air seating
The short pole lanterns in the third row stand between 21 and 39 inches tall. Around a lawn or courtyard they mark edges, steps and the path between tables, which keeps guests from tripping after dark. They will not light a tabletop on their own, so plan them alongside the hanging row or the wall lanterns.
Set each post where a chair cannot be pushed back into it, at a corner of the seating area or along a planter rather than in the middle of a walkway. Lay conduit to every post position before the paving or turf goes down, because cutting a finished floor for one cable is the job that delays most openings. For a garden path lit by low posts, see our piece on jaali bollard lights for garden paths.
Tall poles at the forecourt and parking
At the road edge the job changes. The tall poles in the last row, 64 to 108 inches, light the forecourt and parking, and from the road they act as a signal that the place is open. On a straight edge we suggest 6 to 10 m between poles, as explained in driveway pole spacing. Choosing a height and head for a given site is covered in our pole lantern guide, and a forecourt that needs more light from each foundation can use a twin head, described in twin head lamp posts.
Holding one finish from the door to the road
Choose the finish against the facade material. Matte Black sits well on pale plaster, glass and painted steel. Antique suits exposed brick, sandstone and timber shopfronts. Raw Grey goes with board-marked concrete and grey stone. Our comparison of matte black and antique gold goes further into the choice between those two.
Order every zone together. Pieces coated in the same run match each other more closely than a top-up order coated months later, and that matters most on a frontage where a wall lantern and a pole lantern are seen in the same glance.
A worked count for one frontage
Take a cafe with a single entrance door, a verandah of four bays, a lawn seating area with six corners and steps to mark, and a 20 m forecourt edge along the road. That gives two wall lanterns, four hanging lanterns, six short posts and three tall poles at 10 m centres, fifteen pieces in all. Fifteen pieces falls in our trade lot band, which starts at 10. Buying between one and five pieces means retail list price, and orders of 100 pieces or more, such as a chain fitting out several outlets in the same design, are priced as a project.
Each lantern is fitted for a B22 lamp unless your quote names a different holder. A twin-head pole has two holders, so count lamps per head, not per pole. Lamps come with the order only when the quote shows them as a line. Some pole product pages also list extra priced lines for a bracket and for the head or lamp, so check those before you total the order. If you are supplying your own LED lamps, our note on empty housing or glass with LED explains what each option ships with.
Prices are in rupees and ex-works our Aligarh factory. Packing adds ₹40 per lantern, and freight to your site comes as a separate quote. Delivery details are on the shipping page.
What to send for a frontage quote
Send a daylight photo of the frontage from across the road, the elevation drawing or a few measurements (door height, verandah ceiling height and the length of the road edge), the count you need in each zone, the finish, the glass and the city. Mention the opening date if there is one, so the lot can be planned around it. Our trade WhatsApp is +91 70176 62533. The 2026 catalogue PDF carries all the codes above with their dimension drawings.
This zone plan comes from workshop knowledge shared by Yogendra and Dharmendra, Kunal's father and uncle.