Restaurant and cafe table tops in New Barnet

Yes. New Barnet is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EN5, EN4. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Barnet. Applying for a suspension means naming a length of kerb and a date, and moving the date generally means applying for it again. 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 quiet hour is worth more to us than a close bay. We come to the kitchen to template and again to fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Internal walls are lath on timber studs while the flank walls are brick, so two walls in the same kitchen take a fixing completely differently. The trade on streets like these sits in a parade of narrow shopfronts, so the dining room is long and thin and the covers are won by the width of the gangway rather than by the size of the room. A basement is for prep and not for storing stone. Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. 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.

The step and the gap at the car threshold catch a trolley wheel, so the piece comes off the trolley and goes in by hand. 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 suspension is charged by the bay and by the day, so the number of metres asked for is worth getting right the first time. The bases are the heavy half of the delivery, so the pallet is dealt with first while there are still hands free for it. Nothing is left on a pavement while a space is found.

No, not particularly, and it would be easy to say otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating. That is the local housing talking rather than anything about the job. It is priced, cut and fitted no differently here than anywhere else we cover. 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. A breakage next winter is a phone call, not a problem. 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. Volume moves the price per piece, and it should.

A galley closed at one end takes a short return across the top, and that little piece carries the same edge work, the same handling and nearly the same cost as a full length. 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. The material band is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. 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 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 brand standard is followed to the letter or not at all.

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. Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. A floor that falls across the depth of a run rather than along it tips the carcasses front to back, and packing the front feet changes the overhang while it fixes the level. 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.

What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than 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. Where a basement car park is the only way up from the parking level the carry starts below ground, and two lifts in one building rarely share the same internal dimensions. 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. Corners take the knocks, so corners get the padding.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Many were built with a solid sub-floor to the rear rooms, so the kitchen floor is concrete and level while the front of the house is suspended timber. 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.

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. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. 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. The programme decides the delivery, not the workshop.