What merch should a restaurant order, and how?

Staff gear and retail merch are different orders

Staff gear has to survive a kitchen: daily washing, grease, heat and bleach-adjacent cleaning. That points to dark or mid-tone garments that hide stains, embroidered logos on anything structured, and durable plastisol screen printing on tees. Fit matters more than fashion, so collect real sizes and offer a women's cut where the style has one.

Retail merch is a product people buy because they like the place. That points the other way: a better blank, often a heavyweight or garment-dyed tee, a design that works off the menu board, and a hat people would wear outside. Running both off the same logo and colors keeps the brand consistent everywhere.

Embroidery or print, item by item

• T-shirts: screen printing from 36 pieces per design, about $7.73 per shirt for a 1-color front at that quantity. Under 36 pieces, DTG, which has no minimum.
• Hats: embroidery, from 24 pieces per design, about $7.88 per hat for the embroidery at that quantity. A stitched logo on a cap outlasts any print.
• Aprons: embroidery is the standard for a logo that lasts through daily washing; screen printing works on canvas aprons for larger, bolder graphics. Aprons and chef coats are sourced from supplier catalogs to your spec, so tell us the style you want when you ask for a quote.
• Polos and chef coats: embroidery for front-of-house and management, with names added piece by piece where you want them.

Getting the logo right

Send the logo as vector artwork (AI, EPS, SVG or PDF) if you have it. For embroidery the logo is digitized into a stitch file once (a one-time $45.00 per design), and very small text or fine detail may need simplifying to stitch cleanly on a hat or apron. On dark garments a screen print gets a white underbase so the colors read, which is built into the quote.

Reorders, new hires and selling merch

We keep your artwork and stitch files on file, so reorders are quick, and a screen-print reorder of the same design carries no setup. That makes topping up for new hires simple. If staff or customers should be able to order their own, an online store is a private page with your approved items where people pick and pay for their own sizes, and we produce against what comes in.