What’s in a Name: Is it called a Buffet or Sideboard or Both?

Buffets and sideboards make serving meals and entertaining seemingly effortless and more enjoyable. If you’ve arrived at More Dining Tables determined to purchase one for your dining room, you may be a little confused. Which is which or are they the same thing? Because they basically serve the same purpose, today, many furniture retailers use the terms interchangeably. But sideboards and buffets do have their own separate stories to tell.

Emerging in the form we know them today, sideboards first appeared in the eighteenth century, and were used in a dining room or a hall for holding food and wine before it was to be served. They really gained popularity all over Europe in the nineteenth century as more and more households became prosperous enough to have a room in their homes dedicated specifically to formal dining. They were invariably made of mahogany and were often richly detailed with expensive veneers and costly overlays. Sideboards produced in the European colonies of North America became simpler in appearance and were made of woods indigenous to the region, like oak, pine and walnut.

Typically, a sideboard resembles a table, stands roughly waist high and has a center drawer especially designed for either linens or silverware and an open or enclosed storage area Today, sideboards are available in numerous styles and designs, but essentially are still used for serving food, displaying collectibles and storing meal-related items like serving platters, placemats and cutlery. In today’s busy home, a sideboard, like the contemporary Hillsdale Bayberry Glenmary Cherry Sideboard, can conveniently store everything in one place needed to set a table, saving time while increasing the functionality of your dining room.

From the French, “buffet” refers to a small sideboard for storing dishes. They can be traced back to the Middle Ages, where they bore more of a resemblance to modern sideboards. Originally, a buffet was a stack of shelves, the number of which being an indication of the owner’s wealth and status in the community. Over the centuries, they evolved into elaborately detailed pieces of furniture. In the sixteenth century, it emerged as a serving or side table, often with two or three tiers. In the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the buffet became more elaborate, characterized by tiered shelves above a serving counter and cupboards with doors below the serving area.

Contemporary buffets come in a variety of styles and configurations, but generally have a serving counter with a row of drawers, with two doors on either side and a storage area in the middle. Like the Home Styles Furniture Three-Drawer Large Buffet, a buffet can also include utility drawers, wine storage and a display shelf. Buffets can also feature stemware racks or a hutch with shelves, dividers and plate grooves.

Due to their versatility and adaptability, buffets and sideboards remain a popular way to make dining and entertaining stylish and enjoyable. They essentially serve the same purpose; that of storing meal-related items such as china, utensils and table linens. And just to confuse the issue a little more, when shopping for one online at More Dining Tables, keep in mind that both sideboards and buffets are also known as servers.