Restaurant and cafe table tops in Riddlesdown

Yes. Riddlesdown is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are CR8. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Croydon. Where the drive is too short for the van the back end overhangs the footway, and a footway is a route people are using rather than spare space. 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. Frames come off before pallets so the floor stays clear. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

The scullery floor was quarry tile bedded on concrete and it is often still under a laminate, sitting lower than the boards in the room it now joins. Parades of this period usually keep a service road or a yard behind them, so a full order can arrive at the back and the dining room stays laid up while it does. Roller shutters and bollards lengthen the carry. Two alcove pieces will not swap over however similar they look, so they are marked left and right at the bench and stay that way to the van. 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. A step in the floor is a base decision.

Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. 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. The way in is walked before the van doors open. Having the van on the drive means the load can be staged, so the heavy pieces come off last and go straight in instead of standing outside. The bases are the heavy half of the delivery, so the pallet is dealt with first while there are still hands free for it. Loading rules are confirmed with the operator beforehand.

Not particularly. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation, worktop replacement and worktop templating. 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. 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. 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. Held stock is worth more than a discount. 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. 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. What one room learns, the next room uses.

Power and waste come up through the floor, and where they surface decides which cabinet can hold a sink and which one cannot. 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. Nothing is cut until the seating plan stops moving. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. 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. Every piece is offered up to its own pedestal. Confirm how many covers go outside, and tell us whether the outdoor bases share the pattern of the indoor ones, since they often do not. 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 specification is written so it can be repeated.

Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. 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. Nothing is trimmed on site to make it fit.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. The classic arrangement is the original back room with a later extension bolted onto it, so the kitchen is two ages of building in one room. The units are wider than an older shopfront, which is what makes a long wall of two-seaters work, and a repeated size is the single cheapest decision on the order because it nests tightly and makes a spare piece worth holding. Terraces and gardens live outdoors all year.

A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. A hob cut-out and the floor penetration feeding it have to land over the same cabinet, and where they do not it is the stone that gets redrawn rather than the pipework. Rounds waste the corners of their blank where squares do not, so the mix of shapes moves the slab count more than the number of covers does. Colour is matched across the room, not table by table.

The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. Sockets set into the end panel keep the top clear, but they sit below the stone and are cut into the panel by the fitter rather than machined into the worktop. Where a servery run forces a join, the tables never carry one, because a table top is a single piece of stone or it is not a table top. Veining is laid out so no two pieces read as a pair.