Ashtrays for bars, cafés and hotels: what to look for

A venue ashtray has a harder job than a home one. It's handled by hundreds of people, emptied dozens of times a night, and it sits on every table as part of how the place looks. Here is what we'd check before buying in quantity.

Weight. Light ashtrays walk — into bags, off the edge of tables, across the terrace in a breeze. Ceramic has real weight; it stays where staff put it.

A surface that wipes clean. Glazed ceramic doesn't absorb tar or smell the way plastic and unfinished materials do. Warm water and a cloth at close, and it's back to new.

Consistency and character. Every table should match, and the piece should say something about the room. Ours are sculptural — a bulldog, a clog, a playing card — and they read as part of the design rather than something the kitchen lent out.

Your own piece. If nothing in the collection is quite it, we make custom pieces: your shape, your glaze, your logo. Tell us the idea and the quantity, and we come back with a price and a lead time.

How ordering works. Tell us roughly how many and where they're going on the B2B page; pricing drops with quantity and we reply within a day. Everything is made in our studio in India, packed piece by piece, and shipped anywhere in the country. See the current pieces on the products page first, or read about keeping them clean.