If not, then it shows a lot about the employer. You risk looking like a company that buys cheap desktops, and and small screens to save money, but don't realise they are loosing tons in the way of lost productivity.
At home I have an $200 Ikea chair, and it is really nice. Not bank breaking for sure, but I expect my employer buy something similar in comfort level. Doesn't have to be a top of the line, but something that I can sit for few hours at a time without breaking my back.
I learned it the hard way, but I will never work in a place that cheaps out on chairs.
If you can't afford a $200 chair per employee, then you shouldn't be hiring. You need founders, and they can bring their own chair.
I went to IKEA looking for chairs—and hated all of them. To me, these chairs are very comfortable.
Why don't you trade the free lunch for better chairs?
I recently went ergonomic chair shopping and find it extremely hard to believe you can get a decent chair for $60-80. The price range was 10x that where I looked.
The chairs in this photo - http://dontrepreneur.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/office2.jpg - do not look anywhere near ergonomic. If it only goes up and down, it's not ergonomic.
