One of the most convenient and fun kitchen island trends is the portable kitchen cart. With this flexible piece of furniture, you get all the goodness of an island, wherever and whenever you need it. Go from an outside BBQ, to Sunday football in the living room, to a buffet-style dinner with no problem. Just roll your portable kitchen cart to where the party is, and instantly increase your countertop and storage space. To make your portable island even more functional for entertaining, here are a few clever tips for setting it up.
1. Self-Serve Bar
The portable cart is one of the most popular kitchen island trends, because it makes entertaining so much easier. When you are hosting a party, having an easily accessible self-serve bar is a great way to take stress off the host and allow guests some freedom.
When transforming your portable kitchen cart into a self-serve bar station, here is what you’ll want to include:
- Use trays to create zones (one for glassware, one for liquor, one for cocktail napkins, an so on). This stops total madness from ensuing within 5 minutes of your party starting, and makes tidying up now and then a much quicker task.
- Find ways to add pops of color whether with coasters or an ice bucket. It will help draw attention to your self-serve station for guests and give the cart a little style.
- Take advantage of cabinet storage. You’re inevitably going to run out of glasses or mixer, so stock up the cabinets with the essentials.
2. Double Up As Decoration
Willow Lane Cabinetry has a wide variety of portable kitchen carts, and while each look is uniquely beautiful, you can amp up your cart’s style by letting it serve as a piece of décor! Does your party have a theme? Have you been dying to show off those vintage champagne glasses you scored at the flea market? Get creative and incorporate some decorations that will complement your special occasion and your cart.
Have fun with this and let your personality shine — just be mindful of clutter. You want to enhance your portable cart, not overwhelm it with too many decorations. While a book is a cute divide, it loses its appeal if its knocked over every time someone picks up the vodka.
3. Keep the Crazy Out of the Kitchen
Here’s another reason why portable carts are one the greatest kitchen island trends — they keep things calm in the kitchen! Rather than overburdening your countertops with serving ware, food, and drinks, you can delegate some of those items to your cart.
Think about your specific event when deciding how to set up your cart. Would it be most convenient to serve dinner buffet-style and keep dishes on top of the cart? Would storing plates and silverware on shelves make the day run a little smoother?
With all that extra storage and countertop space right where you need it, there are endless options for optimizing your cart for entertaining.
4. Dessert Bar
One of our favorite ways to set up a portable kitchen cart is as a dessert station. Serving as a static piece of furniture in the room, a dessert station gets people really excited about the meal. Who doesn’t love cupcakes? Dessert trays also give you those decorating capabilities we talked about in the second tip.
Tiered cake platters, colorful plates, and pretty confections help make quite an impression. Try to have a variety of desserts on hand to suit different tastes: something simple and not too sweet (like shortbread cookies or pound cake), something chocolate (like brownies), and something fruity (pies are always a good idea). Keep your dessert plates and napkins on top of the cart as well so guests will be encouraged to help themselves, and come back for seconds.
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