Boys' Night In

Dinner for 8 in the Poker Room

Our adult sons and their friends like to come over every couple of months, eat dinner, play poker, and smoke cigars.  They provided their own food but allowed me to have fun setting the table for them.

In our basement we have a round room just for poker and cigars, with its own air filtration system, so smoke goes no where else in the house.  

The double-sided French Tabacs sign was a Warrenton antiques fair purchase and looks great mounted on the wall over the door into the poker room.

The first layer is a gold check cloth to the floor with a vintage 1960's 

black square one on top that has a liquor label motif.  I love to collect specialty cloths for this room and have other ones with playing cards and cigar labels.

This cloth is divided into nine squares & these two patterns alter-

nate in them.

The centerpiece is made up of some of our cigar collectibles including boxes, lighters, and the Majorette advertising Yankee Cigars for a nickel.  

These are the eight vintage tea towels I used for napkins.  I get them from Michelle Piccolo at the Red Barn part of the Round Top antiques show twice a year.  I have these drinking and gambling themed ones for our bar and pretty floral ones for the kitchen.

 The first dish layer was a gold plastic charger.  Craft stores often have them in lots of different colors quite inexpensively and they give you bang for your buck.  Do treat them gently though and only hand wash.  I have had problems with bits of the paint peeling.  The next layer is a Lenox china pattern called Urban Lights with black and gold rings.  The salad plate is the same name but has a small diamond pattern in the middle.  I thought the black and gold color pallet was masculine while also being elegant enough to send the message that I think even "just the guys" deserve a beautiful table and it's nice because they always let me know they appreciate my time and trouble.

For flatware I used one set of four very old bone & steel knives and forks (right) and one new set meant to look old (left).   They are fun and manly for a steak dinner but due to the lack of four prongs, not really usable for the salad and baked potato so I also used sterling salad and dinner forks at each place setting.

Place cards, pun intended, were playing cards with the guys' names, set at the top of the napkins.

For their Terreno 1996 Chianti Classico I used Waterford's Lismore red wine glasses.  I like cut glass, rather than crystal, for men as it has more heft and they don't worry so much about it being delicate.

A vintage black and gold tray is set up with an ivory embroidered tray cloth, cups, saucers, creamer and sugar that match the china dinner plates, with Lismore brandy snifters for the cognac, and cigars.