Restaurant and cafe table tops in Hackney Downs

Yes. Hackney Downs is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E5, E8. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Hackney. Controlled hours that end in the middle of the afternoon make the second half of the day easy and put the whole problem in the first half. 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. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

Cornice, picture rails and deep skirting survive in converted rooms, so the run stands off the wall and the back edge follows the units rather than the plaster. The commercial frontage on streets like these is a narrow shop with the dining room running back from the pavement, so the tops go in past furniture that is already down. A basement is for prep and not for storing stone. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. 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. Room by room, since no two of them are the same.

A communal flight is out of use while a piece is on it, so the carry is timed so nobody is trying to pass on a half-landing. 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. The turn is measured for the frame, not for a person. A short lunchtime window of control exists to keep commuters off the street, and it still catches a trade van standing there for an hour. The bases are the heavy half of the delivery, so the pallet is dealt with first while there are still hands free for it. Somewhere to stand the frames matters more than the distance.

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. Studio and one-bed conversions put the whole kitchen against a single wall, so the job is one run and everything depends on that one length. 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. A trial piece before a large order is money well spent. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. 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. Orders are counted in pieces and never in metres.

The joint where a peninsula meets the main run wants a gable directly under it, and where the units do not offer one, steel goes in to carry that joint instead. 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. Veining is laid out so no two pieces read as a pair. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. 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. Nothing is scribed, because nothing meets a wall. 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. One staircase can serve an owner on the first floor and a managed tenancy on the second, so the access arrangement changes at every landing while the building stays the same. 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. Who pays and who approves are worth naming early.

The carry route is measured before anything is cut, so a piece that will not make the turn is split at the drawing stage rather than discovered on the day. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. A fitted stair carpet is either lifted or covered, because grit trodden into it under work boots does more harm than the carry itself. Tops travel upright in a padded frame, and it is the frame rather than the person carrying it that has to clear the tightest turn. Wrapping stays on until the pedestal is standing.

A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. A breakfast bar on the outer side is an overhang like any other, and the support under it is sized for people leaning on the end rather than for the weight of the stone alone. 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 spare comes off the same run or it is not a spare.

No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. Lease conditions and the other flats in the building decide when noisy work can happen, so the fitting day has a start and a finish that are not ours to set. A unit in an old parade rarely has rear access, which means every top and every base comes through the front door in the order it will be set out. Roller shutters and bollards lengthen the carry.

The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. 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. Levelled at the feet, never packed under the stone.