Restaurant and cafe table tops in Limehouse

Yes. Limehouse is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E14. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Tower Hamlets. Where a loading concession applies at all, it holds only while something is being carried, which makes it a way to unload rather than a way to park. 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. Counted off at the tail lift where the standing is short. We come to the kitchen to template and again to fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Floor-to-ceiling glazing lights the worktop from one side all day, which shows every ripple in a polished surface and every gap at a scribe. 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. Covers decide the count, and the count decides the order. Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. 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. Feet are wound out where the floor falls away.

A side gate hung to open outward against a fence post is narrower in use than it measures, and lifting the gate off its hinges is usually the quickest win on the route. 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. A stack of tops is a weight before it is a delivery. Loading concessions differ from one zone to the next rather than following a single national rule, so what applied on the last job proves nothing about this one. The bases are the heavy half of the delivery, so the pallet is dealt with first while there are still hands free for it. The van stays until the last piece is on its base.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation, worktop templating and worktop replacement. That is a point about the buildings round here, not about the job. The quoting, the cutting and the fitting are identical here to anywhere else we work. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. 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 phased opening is planned as a single order. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. 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. The count is agreed before the slab is committed.

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. 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. The count per slab is worked before a figure is given. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. 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. The base carries the weight and the floor carries the base. 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. 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. Dilapidations do not reach what was never fixed down.

Grooves are machined into the surface rather than applied to it, so there is nothing to come loose later. A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. The grooves sit inside the depth of the top with stone left either side, so a shallow run limits them. The room is square, the walls are plumb and the floor is flat, so almost every complication in the job belongs to the building rather than the 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. Four finished edges and a set of blind holes, and that is the piece.

The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. 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 shallow room decides the diameter early.

Taking the old tops off and disposing of them is its own line on the quote rather than something folded into the stone price. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. A van waiting on a loading concession has somebody standing with it, because a vehicle left unattended is the one that collects the ticket. 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. A quiet hour is worth more to us than a close bay.

Sinks, taps and hobs are yours to buy in any case, and they only have to be in the room for the template. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. Thickness has to be known before quoting, since it decides the edge, the cut-outs and what the units carry. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. 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. Lead time is the reason the date is set early.