Serving trays with the look of glass and the durability to survive a busy floor.
ISO 9001 · MOQ 100 per design · FOB Shenzhen, CIF or DDP
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An acrylic serving tray — also called a plexiglass or lucite serving tray — carries food, drinks, and amenities in hotels, restaurants, catering, and retail. It won't shatter when dropped, it is fully waterproof, and a logo printed or etched on the bottom reads through the serving surface. We make them with metal, cut-out, or no handles, in rectangular, round, and custom shapes.
Paid samples cost US$200–500 per design and are never credited to the order; production runs from 100 pcs per design.
The handle decides how a tray carries; pick it by how far staff walk with it loaded. Sizes are starting points — every tray is cut to your drawing.
Stainless steel or brass handles bolted through the acrylic — the strongest grip for bars, restaurant floors, banquets, and room service. Handles do not loosen under weight or washing.
14×10 to 20×14 in · 5mm, 8mm for large trays
Radiused handle openings routed into the wall. One CNC-cut piece: no hardware to loosen or corrode, nothing to trap residue, and it stacks low.
12×8 to 18×13 in · 5mm, 8mm heavy-duty
An unbroken diamond-polished rim for buffets, retail counters, spa rooms, and amenity service where the tray is set down rather than carried far.
8×6 to 16×12 in · clear, frosted, or mirrored bottom
Three or four graduated trays that seat inside each other, so a catering fleet or hotel group stores and ships a full set in the footprint of the largest tray.
3–4 trays, 14–20 in · cut-out handles, matched branding
Restaurant and hotel groups usually settle on two sizes — one bar, one table — and hold the same material, edge, and logo across both.
| Service format | Typical tray | Thickness | Handle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bar & cocktail service | 14×10 in | 5mm cast PMMA | Cut-out or metal |
| Room service | 16×12 in | 5mm cast PMMA | Metal |
| Table service & food running | 18×13 in | 5mm cast PMMA | Brushed-stainless metal |
| Banquet & event service | 20×14 in | 8mm cast PMMA | Brass or stainless |
| Back-of-house & wash-heavy duty | 16×12 in | 5mm cast PMMA | Cut-out — no hardware to loosen |
Setups are indicative and depend on contents and load. The custom serving tray spec guide covers the depth, thickness, and weight behind each.
Four choices beyond size define a serving tray: the body sheet, how you brand it, its shape, and whether it ships single or as a covered, divided, or nested set.
Acrylic trays for events and plexiglass trays for events are the same PMMA build: it won’t shatter when a guest drops it, it weighs about half of glass when staff load forty trays, and it survives quick-turn washing between bookings. Cut-out handles are the rental default; acrylic catering trays often add a lid, dividers, or a nested set, and a sponsor’s mark goes second-surface under the glassware. For fixed event dates we plan backwards from the date, including split air/sea shipment where it buys the deadline back.
Custom serving tray spec guideServing tray with lid and compartmentsFood-safe acrylic traysTray logo optionsBottom-print quality specTwo-tone tray fabrication
Serving tray pricing depends on five factors: tray size, acrylic thickness, handle type, bottom treatment, and order quantity. The steepest per-unit drop is between 100 and 500 pieces, where setup, edge polishing, and handle mounting spread across more trays.
| Reference specification | 100 pcs | 250 pcs | 500 pcs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16×12in serving tray · 5mm clear · cut-out handles · etched logo | $19 | $14 | $11 |
Published planning reference, FOB Shenzhen. At 1,000 pieces the same tray is $8. A small 3mm handleless tray costs a fraction of a large 8mm metal-handle banquet tray with a UV-printed bottom.
A branded program is usually one tray family carried across many sites — a hotel group’s room-service trays, one tray for every restaurant location, or a sponsor’s event floor. We keep the approved sample’s spec sheet so reorders repeat exactly: same sheet grade, handle, artwork file, and edge. Hotel and spa groups often run the guest-bath side on acrylic vanity trays from the same artwork. Programs across the whole tray range: bulk and repeat tray programs.
Delivered project
An event catering company needed serving trays staff could wear through roaming service. We built 150 acrylic trays with stainless-reinforced strap anchors, engineered to carry an 8 kg service load and survive the wash line, and approved the anchor design on the sample before production.
A named FOB Shenzhen reference is a 16×12in serving tray in 5mm clear acrylic with cut-out handles and an etched logo: $19 each at 100 pieces, $14 at 250, and $11 at 500. Size, thickness, handle hardware, color, artwork method, packing, and destination move the final number. Send the seven quote inputs and we respond within 24 hours with an itemized quote.
Cast acrylic (PMMA) can be specified food-safe — we verify the material against the regulation your market needs (FDA 21 CFR in the US, EU 10/2011 in Europe) and supply the technical data sheet tied to your production lot. Dishwashers are the one thing we tell every food-service buyer to avoid: repeated wash-and-dry cycles combine heat with harsh detergents that stress-craze PMMA into hairline cracks over months of service. Spec the tray for hand-washing with mild detergent and a soft cloth and it stays optically clear for years — our food-safe acrylic tray guide covers the full care spec.
Three options. Metal handles — stainless steel or brass, attached with hardware — give the strongest grip and a premium hospitality feel, best for busy service floors. Cut-out handles are routed directly into the acrylic for a single-piece look with no hardware to loosen. Handleless serving trays have clean polished edges and read as a minimal presentation surface. We also build nested serving-tray sets that stack for storage. Handle style is chosen to match your service environment and brand look.
Our MOQ for custom acrylic serving trays is 100 pieces per design. That lets a boutique hotel test amenity-and-service trays before a full rollout, or a restaurant group commit to a single branded run. Per-unit pricing drops as quantity rises — ask for quantity-tier pricing in your quote. Sample production takes 3–5 days; bulk production runs 15–20 days.
Yes. Because clear acrylic is fully transparent, branding on the tray bottom reads through the serving surface without sitting where food or drinks rest. Options: UV printing for full-color logos and artwork, silk-screen printing for one or two solid colors, laser etching for a permanent frosted mark, and hot stamping for gold or silver foil accents. For food-service trays we print second-surface (underneath) so the ink is protected from wear and washing. Send vector artwork (AI/EPS preferred) and we confirm placement and color match at the sample stage.
Each material fails a different way. Wood absorbs liquid, stains, and warps once its seal wears through, and it can't show bottom branding. Stainless steel is durable but heavy, dents, shows fingerprints, and offers no visual depth. Melamine looks fine until the surface scratches and dulls. Cast acrylic is fully waterproof, roughly half the weight of a comparable steel tray, won't shatter when dropped, takes a diamond-polished edge that holds clarity through years of daily hand-washing, and can carry printed or etched branding on the bottom. For daily commercial service where the tray is also a brand touchpoint, acrylic is the default.
Yes. For launches we routinely split shipments: a 50–200 pc air-freight first batch to hit your opening or event date, with the balance by sea freight 25–35 days later at a lower per-unit landed cost. We quote both legs together so total landed cost is clear upfront. FOB Shenzhen is standard; CIF and DDP door-to-door delivery is available for the US, EU, UK, and Australia.
Yes — wall thickness is the main lever on weight, and we tune it to your use. A large tray in 5mm cast PMMA carries a lot of material; dropping to 3mm can cut a tray's weight by roughly a third for the same footprint, which matters if staff carry it loaded through a shift or a buyer has told us the current tray is too heavy. The tradeoff is rigidity: thinner walls flex more, so a light 2–3mm tray suits decorative, amenity, or single-event use, while daily commercial service that sees heavy plates and repeat washing usually wants 5mm to stay flat and rigid. We size thickness to the tray's real load rather than defaulting to the heaviest option — tell us how the tray gets used and we recommend the lightest wall that still holds its shape, then confirm the exact sample weight before you approve production.
Landed cost depends on Incoterm and shipping mode, so there's no single flat number. Our standard quote is FOB Shenzhen — the tray cost at our door — and from there you add freight to your destination. We can also quote DDP (delivered duty paid), where we handle freight, customs, and delivery to your door and roll it into one per-tray figure. Air freight lands in about 5–10 days but costs more per unit; sea freight has a lower unit cost but runs 25–35 days transit. For launches we often split the order — a small air-freight first batch to hit a date, the balance by sea to lower the average landed cost. Send your destination, quantity, and target date and we quote FOB and DDP side by side so the delivered per-tray cost is clear before you commit.
Yes. A serving tray can be built with a matching acrylic lid that turns it into a covered presentation or storage set, and the interior can be divided into compartments — useful for amenity kits, multi-count packaging, or keeping items from sliding. Lid fit and divider layout are engineered to your contents and confirmed at the sample stage, including how easily the lid opens and closes. For the full spec — lid clearance, divider tolerances, and how the compartments are cut — see our acrylic serving tray with lid and compartments spec guide.
Yes. Three routes: a laser-etched monogram cuts permanent initials or a fixed logo into the acrylic as a frosted mark; a second-surface UV bottom print puts full-color artwork underneath the tray, protected from wear and reading through the clear surface; and an interchangeable printed insert drops a swappable art card into a bottom slot so one tray body can carry different names or seasonal designs. Etching and second-surface print are fixed for the run; the insert route lets each tray differ without re-tooling. Send vector artwork (AI/EPS preferred) and we confirm placement and color match at the sample stage.
Yes — that is the standard commercial order. We build custom restaurant serving trays to your dimensions in cast PMMA, with metal handles, cut-out handles, or a handleless edge, and put your logo on the bottom by UV print, silk-screen, or laser etch so it reads through the serving surface without sitting under the food. Production MOQ is 100 pieces per design, so a single location can pilot a tray before a group-wide rollout, and per-unit cost drops through the 500, 1,000, and 10,000-piece bands. A paid sample takes 3–5 days; bulk production runs 15–20 days, priced FOB Shenzhen, with every tray passing 100% inspection on edge polish, handle fit, print quality, and dimensional tolerance. Send your size, handle preference, quantity, and vector artwork and we respond within 24 hours.
Acrylic resists clouding far better than it resists scratching, and both come down to care. Cast PMMA won't yellow or go milky from normal use, but the surface is softer than glass, so abrasive pads or grit will scratch it. Clean with a microfiber cloth and mild dish soap in warm water, then rinse — that handles daily service without marking the surface. The one thing to avoid is ammonia- or alcohol-based glass cleaners: repeated exposure can stress-craze cast PMMA, producing fine surface cracks that read as cloudiness over months of use. Skip the window spray, use mild soap and a soft cloth, and a diamond-polished tray holds its clarity through years of daily hand-washing.
Send the exterior dimensions, intended contents or loaded weight, acrylic color and thickness, handle style, bottom or branding treatment, quantity per design, and packing destination with the preferred freight term. A sketch or reference photo is enough for the first review. The tray builder and downloadable worksheet put these inputs into one brief.
From your first message to delivered serving trays.
Send exterior dimensions, contents or loaded weight, acrylic color and thickness, handle style, bottom or branding treatment, quantity per design, and destination. Use the tray builder or the one-page worksheet; we respond within 24 hours.
We build a production sample with your exact dimensions, handle, bottom, and branding in 3–5 days. Sample fees are paid separately and are not credited to production orders.
Production takes 15–20 days. Every tray is inspected for edge polish, handle fit, print quality, and dimensions. FOB Shenzhen standard; CIF and DDP available.
Send us your dimensions, handle preference, and quantity — plus any bottom-branding artwork. We respond within 24 hours with a detailed quote covering material grade, handle type, bottom treatment, and timeline. No commitment required. Sample before you commit to production.
