Restaurant and cafe table tops in Peckham Rye

Yes. Peckham Rye is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE15, SE22. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Southwark. A van waiting on a loading concession has somebody standing with it, because a vehicle left unattended is the one that collects the ticket. 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. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

Original joinery is deep and stands proud of the plaster, so the run is plotted to the units rather than to the wall behind them. Hospitality in an area like this is usually a converted house or an old inn, so the dining space is several small rooms rather than one, and each room takes a different table size. Covers decide the count, and the count decides the order. 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. 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. Levelled at the feet, never packed under the stone.

Where the turn inside is tight the piece gets turned on the path and brought in already on edge, which needs room in front of the door as well as behind it. 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. 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. 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 especially, and pretending otherwise would be simple enough. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation. It is a fact about the local housing rather than about the work. The job is quoted, cut and fitted the same way wherever on the patch it lands. 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. Match it now or hunt for it later. 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. A trial piece before a large order is money well spent.

If the island is a few hundred millimetres longer than the usable length of a slab, a second slab gets bought to gain that overhang, and the whole slab is paid for rather than the part used. 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. A spare comes off the same run or it is not a spare. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

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. 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. A pedestal is checked for spread before a size is agreed. Send a plan of each room with its table sizes against it, and say which covers are outdoors so the material can be split before anything is priced. Because the money comes out of a household rather than a maintenance budget, phasing is common: tops now, island or splashbacks later, quoted so the second visit still matches the first. 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. The operator chooses and the freeholder rarely has to.

The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. Retrofitted underfloor heating goes into the new part of the floor and stops at the old part, so the build-up changes partway across the room. 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.

What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. Once the carcasses are levelled the gap under the plinth varies along the run, and that varying gap is the honest record of what the floor is doing. 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 column in the room is designed around, not cut around.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. The units below stay exactly as they are; only the surface is replaced. 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. 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 shared forecourt is booked rather than chanced.

Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. 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. Everything comes through the front door and down the hall, so the tightest point on the route is usually the newel post at the foot of the stairs. 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.