Restaurant and cafe table tops in East Dulwich

Yes. East Dulwich is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE22. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Southwark. Enforcement zones rarely accept a trade van unloading stone as an exemption, so this gets sorted before the date is confirmed rather than argued about afterwards. A table order comes off the van as a stack of frames and a pallet of bases, and both of those need somewhere to stand before either is moved. A clock on the kerb changes the order of unloading. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Sash windows in the addition sit low and the sill can land under standard worktop height, so the top is notched round it or the run stops short of it. That measurement comes first: once the gangway is fixed the table dimension follows, and on most of these frontages that means a six hundred millimetre square for two and a seven hundred millimetre round where the room widens towards the back. Pavement covers take their own specification. A cill projecting forward of the plaster line pushes the back edge out, and the units then stand off the wall by that amount for the whole length. None of that is scribed against on a table, since it stands clear of every wall, so the awkwardness moves from the back edge to the floor and the base. A column in the room is designed around, not cut around.

A window sill or a radiator on the half-landing takes the corner out of the turn at precisely the point the piece needs that corner. A table order is many small pieces rather than one long one, so the route decides how many trips the delivery takes rather than how big anything can be. Larger diameters go in early, while the floor is still clear. Visitor permits are issued to the household rather than to the trade, so the ones the day needs come from the customer and are best in hand the week before. The bases are the heavy half of the delivery, so the pallet is dealt with first while there are still hands free for it. Counted off at the tail lift where the standing is short.

Not really, and there is no sense dressing it up. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop fabrication and worktop installation. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It gets quoted, cut and fitted exactly as it would anywhere else on the patch. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Table work arrives as a batch by its nature, and a batch means one slab run rather than the same colour ordered twice a year apart. Ordered as a set, so the set matches. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. A room opening in a second phase is worth naming now, while the material is still on the ground and a match is a telephone call. A second room is easier to match if it is mentioned now.

An L can be mitred at the corner for a continuous look or butt-jointed over the gable, and the two are different money and different risk. A table top answers to none of that, since it meets no wall and needs no scribe, but the pieces come off the same slab as the counter and the colour has to carry across both. Nothing is cut until the seating plan stops moving. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

Where the sill lands inside the height an upstand would occupy there is no upstand, and the stone either dies into the reveal or stops short of it. A column, a boxed duct or a fixed bench in a dining room is designed around with a shape cut to suit rather than notched on site. Banquette seating wants a cantilever foot under it. Send the seating plan with the gangway widths marked, and bring in one of the bases or the maker’s drawing so the bolt centres can be measured properly. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. A table top bolted to a base you already own is loose furniture rather than a fixture, so it leaves with the operator at the end of a term. A managed building wants notice and it gets notice.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. A bay suspension carries a fee and a notice period, and the notice period is the part that catches people out when a date moves. Where the standing is short the pieces are counted off at the tail lift against the plan rather than checked once they are already inside. The van stays until the last piece is on its base.

Grooves are machined in the workshop at the same time as the bowl cut-out, because they cannot be done well in a kitchen. They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. Sash windows sit low in the rear wall, and the sill often lands below the height a worktop wants to run past. Table tops sit outside all of that, because a top touches no wall at all and every one of its edges is profiled, polished and on show. Every face polished, because a table is looked down on.

The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. The side return was an outside toilet and a coal store before it was ever a kitchen, and the walls left over from that are half a brick thick. What a table top needs from us is a size, a shape and the base plate it has to be drilled to, and very little else. The stone is straightforward and the base fixing is the job.

Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. Casement handles and stays swing down into the space above the worktop, so the clearance that counts is the one measured with the window open. Where a floor falls away, the levelling is done by winding out the feet under each base rather than by packing anything under the stone. A rocking table is a floor problem and not a stone one.