Other forms: banquettes
A banquette is a long padded bench running along a wall. A corner banquette, sit on the banquette, banquette seating.
Restaurants use it because it fits more people into the same floor and because a wall at your back is where everybody would rather sit. The French is a diminutive of bench, and it is the same word as banquet by a different road.
1nounbanquetteA long padded bench running along a wall.
“We sat on the red leather banquette along the wall of the restaurant.”
banquette is a bench.
French banquette is a diminutive of banc, a bench.
French
banquette
English, today
banquette
Borrowed from French banquette. Borrowed from French banquette, the diminutive form of banc; by surface analysis, bank + -ette.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA