Restaurant and cafe table tops in Globe Town

Yes. Globe Town is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E2. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Tower Hamlets. Where the permit is a digital session rather than a paper one, somebody in the house has to start it at the hour the van actually arrives. 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 bases are the heavy pallet, not the tops. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A service duct runs between the kitchen and the bathroom stacked above it, and access to that duct stays open whatever the layout does. The trade in this stock is a row of units under a block: a roller shutter, a shallow room behind it and a paved forecourt in front with bollards across the approach. A high ceiling wants a thicker edge under it. A stack boxed diagonally across a corner leaves a triangle of dead space, and the top is cut to that triangle rather than to a square return. 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. Uneven flags outside are why outdoor feet adjust.

The barrier, the entry code and the estate rules decide when a van can get near the door, and none of that is negotiable on the day. 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. Two hands to a piece, however light it looks. A resident bay and a shared-use bay can sit on the same street under different rules, and it is usually the shared one a visitor permit or a ticket touches. 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. Somewhere to stand the frames matters more than the distance.

Not really, and there is no sense dressing it up. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop splashbacks & upstands 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. Damage in a let flat is settled as a deposit deduction, so a surface that can be repaired in place is worth more than one that has to be replaced whole. 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 count is agreed before the slab is committed. The person choosing the worktop is not the person using it, and that shifts the balance from appearance towards running cost. 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. Lead time is the reason the date is set early.

Two runs of similar length nest as a pair off one slab, and if one of them grows by a few hundred millimetres the pair stops fitting and the yield changes for both. 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. Offcuts from a counter become the smaller pieces. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. 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. The clearance under a fixed shelf is measured, not assumed. Tell us how close a van can get to the door, and whether the tables have to be moved regularly, since that decides the thickness before anything else does. Managed stock usually comes with its own rules about working hours, waste, and who is allowed on site. 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. Who pays and who approves are worth naming early.

Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. Where the aisle is too tight the usual answer is a reduced-depth top on one side, and a 500mm run is a different cut, a different sink and a different drainer to a 600mm one. What decides the cut list here is the seating plan rather than the room shape, and one repeated table size nests far better than six one-offs. A set is laid out together before anything is wrapped.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. Which side of the bowl they go is about how you stand at the sink, and it is settled before cutting. Communal heating pipework rises through the flat and is boxed in at floor and at ceiling, and none of it moves for a kitchen. 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. Nothing is drilled in your dining room.

Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. The external wall is a concrete panel with a modest window, so the run under it sits in a shallow reveal with a hard cill. That forecourt is the carry, and it is longer than it looks, so the pieces travel the last stretch on a trolley in a frame rather than being walked in by hand. Long hours push the choice towards a harder face.

If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. Front doors off the deck open into a lobby barely wider than the door itself, and the turn out of it is a right angle. The trade in this stock is a row of units under a block, usually a roller shutter with a shallow room behind it. A shopfront door is the only way in on most parades.