Flash Furniture Hercules “X” Back Barstool Review 2024

Are you a bigger, taller, heavier person? Have you found your search for furniture that’s rugged and robust enough to properly support you to be frustrating?

If so, you’re certainly not alone. Most big, national, or global brands make and sell furniture with an upper weight limit in the 250 to 300-pound range. That works for about 90% of the furniture market. Still, it leaves the people who are heavier than that with relatively few options.

The good news is that many smaller brands have moved into the space and begun offering furniture for people who weigh more than 300 pounds. The Flash Furniture Hercules “X” Back barstools are an excellent example.

True, the company markets and sells these primarily to restaurants. Still, there’s absolutely no reason individuals can’t purchase them for home use, either. They’re surprisingly handsome furniture, although their casual, vaguely industrial look and feel may make them a bad fit for your home décor scheme.

In the following sections, we’ll tell you everything these barstools offer, and we won’t shy away from talking about their negatives. That way, you’ll have all the information you need to decide if these are the barstools you’ve been looking for. Let’s take a closer look, starting now.

Key Features of the Flash Furniture Hercules X Back Restaurant Barstools

First, we have to confess that we love Flash Furniture! Although the company isn’t an industry giant, it’s been in the business for a long time and makes consistently good furniture.

Their Hercules line is outstanding and specifically designed for bigger, taller folk. We’ve never encountered a chair in the Hercules lineup that wasn’t incredibly rugged and long-lasting, and the Flash Furniture Hercules “X” Back barstools are no exception.

Aesthetically, these barstools were designed with more attention to function than form. They’re not unattractive; they’re merely functional, with a minimalist, vaguely industrial look and feel, which makes them great for restaurants, bars, and the like.

Of course, the company sells them individually or in pairs. This means that home users can fully take advantage of the value these barstools bring to the table—and they bring quite a lot of that, supporting an impressive 500 pounds of user weight.

Chair Specifications

Here are a few other basic stats that define this model:

The 500-pound supported weight limit is all the more impressive, given their scant weight. We also love the “X” design of the seatback, which gives the stools a subtle but interesting flourish and enhances their visual appeal.

Seat Options

Even better, if you decide that these are the stools you’re looking for, Flash offers them in various seat color options, all with black metal frames.

Vinyl Seats

Wooden Seats

Adjustability and Comfort

The Flash Furniture Hercules X Back Restaurant Barstools don’t offer adjustability. They are comfortable, but only for short-term seating. The wooden seat variants are somewhat less comfortable than their padded cousins. However, even the padded seats don’t offer much in the way of comfort, sporting a relatively modest 2.5” of block foam padding with vinyl stretched over them.

The versions with wooden seats are far more durable and, with proper care, will provide years of reliable service. If you opt for one of the variants with vinyl upholstery, the vinyl begins peeling and cracking after about a year of moderate to heavy daily use.

The good news is that the stool frame is so rugged and durable that it’s well worth spending a bit of money to have your bar stools reupholstered with something more durable and long-lasting. While at it, you can swap out the conventional block foam with memory foam or something that provides enhanced comfort and a much better stool.

The best way to look at it is to consider the standard vinyl upholstery on these stools your “starter kit.” Then, upgrade to what you want when the upholstery inevitably starts showing its age. Whichever option you choose, though, wooden or vinyl-clad seats offer tremendous value for the money.

Rubber Floor Guides

Before we move on, no matter which variant you buy, all these stools come with rubberized floor guides that will help prevent scuffs or scratches if you plan to use them on hardwood flooring. It’s a small thing but a very nice finishing touch that further enhances the value of these stools.

Some Assembly Required

As with most furniture sold online today, the Flash Furniture Hercules X Back Metal barstools will arrive at your doorstep unassembled. Fortunately, in this case, the only thing to do is attach the seat to the stool frame, which takes mere minutes per stool.

Flash offers an expert assembly option for these stools, but the service’s price is excessive and will add some 50% to the total cost of each stool you buy. Given Flash’s relatively high and consistent production quality, we do not consider it a worthwhile investment.

Pros and Cons of Flash Furniture Hercules “X” Back Barstool

These are good stools that will provide you with years of reliable service. They’re decent-looking, relatively comfortable, and incredibly rugged as long as you don’t try to spend the whole day sitting in them.

We regard the ones with the vinyl seats to be slightly inferior to their wooden-seat counterparts, but only slightly. Since there’s not much upholstery to contend with, it’s cheap and easy to have them re-covered with something that will last longer when the vinyl wears out.

The only downside is that the vinyl options will require a minor additional investment after about a year, and some people might not like the vaguely industrial aesthetic. If you’re okay with both of those things or order one of the wooden-seat variants, there are no weaknesses.

Flash Furniture Hercules “X” Back Barstools Review Conclusion

We like the Flash Furniture Hercules “X” Back barstools far more than their overall rating value indicates. At full price, they offer tremendous value and can often be found on sale, making them an insanely good value and a no-brainer in our book.

Although we regard them as incredibly versatile pieces of furniture, we readily admit that they won’t be for everyone. The lack of a swivel-seat feature and modest to nonexistent padding (depending on which variant you buy) make them nonstarters for a certain portion of the market. Ultimately, it comes down to precisely what you’re looking for in a barstool. On that basis, we provisionally recommend them.

Recommended Reading

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Official Manufacturer Support

REFERENCES & RESOURCES

• Flash Furniture, Official Brand Website.
• Flash Furniture Hercules “X” Back Barstool User Manual.
• Choosing the Right Bar Stool, A Thoughtful Place.
• Difference Between Counter and Bar Stools, DifferenceBetween.
• Tips on the Proper Care of Wooden Bar Stools, LA Furniture Blog.