Restaurant and cafe table tops in Fulham Reach

Yes. Fulham Reach is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W6. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hammersmith and Fulham. Time-limited bays are camera-enforced across a lot of managed estates, so the unload runs to the clock and the van moves off 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. The pavement stays walkable while the frames come off. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

Handover kitchens are fitted with the cheapest carcass the specification allowed, and cam-lock chipboard boxes are what a stone top has to sit on. The commercial space in a new block is a ground-floor unit with a service bay or a loading door behind it, and that is the most straightforward delivery a table order gets: a level threshold, a flat floor and a goods lift where the unit runs over more than one level. Long hours push the choice towards a harder face. Where a peninsula returns into a stud wall the load has to sit on the units, with the wall doing no more than steadying it. 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. Nothing is scribed, because nothing meets a wall.

Bollards, planters and a one-way service road can turn what looks like a ten-metre carry into a fifty-metre one. 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. Wrapping stays on until the pedestal is standing. A dedicated loading bay or service yard is the easiest arrangement in a managed building, provided the slot is booked and someone has the key to the shutter. The bases are the heavy half of the delivery, so the pallet is dealt with first while there are still hands free for it. One stop, and the count is proved before we leave.

Not particularly. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation. That is about what people have here rather than how it gets done. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. Housings and integrated appliances are set out for a 38mm laminate top, so dropping to 20mm or 30mm stone changes the clearances and needs checking before anything is cut. 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. The batch reference goes on file with the drawing. Upgrading a builder-finish kitchen is mostly a swap, so the cost sits in the material choice rather than in the shape of the room. Where an operator changes hands the bases usually stay, so a refit becomes a resurface and the saving comes from what is already bolted down. Repeat work is quoted against the original, not from scratch.

On a book-matched pair the halves are laid out so the mirror line runs down the length of the piece, and once that line is set the top cannot be turned round to suit anything else. 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. Cut from the same run as the counter, so the room agrees. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

A lightweight stud partition will not carry a breakfast bar or a peninsula end, and stone finds that out faster than laminate ever did. 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. Levelled at the feet, never packed under the stone. Send the fit-out drawing with final table positions and sizes, the base specification, and the delivery window the managing agent is prepared to accept. One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. The length of the lease is a legitimate reason to specify differently, and nobody should be talked into a decade of surface for five years of trading. Sign-off covers shape, edge, drilling and count.

A long top on units that were shimmed once and never checked is the commonest version of this, and it is cheap to fix beforehand. Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. Dot-and-dab plasterboard sounds solid and is hollow behind, so anything fixed through it has to hit a dab or a batten rather than a void. 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 pedestal is checked for spread before a size is agreed.

Sinks, taps and hobs are yours to buy in any case, and they only have to be in the room for the template. How much slab you hold matters: upstands and any remake have to come out of the same batch. Remnants bought elsewhere are the awkward case, because the drawing is then made to fit the stone. Handover-spec kitchens are square, plumb and predictable, which means the join count is honest and driven by run length rather than by the building. A fit-out programme runs to an opening date that does not move, so the sizes are frozen and the slab committed earlier than most jobs need. Fit-out dates are worked backwards from the opening.

Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. Underfloor heating in the screed means nothing is fixed into the floor, so an island is anchored to the carcasses alone. The complication is the programme rather than the building. A shopfront door is the only way in on most parades.

Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. The lift car, the loading bay and the building manager decide the piece sizes here, not the slab. 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.