Restaurant and cafe table tops in Tooting

Yes. Tooting is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW17. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Wandsworth. Some zones are controlled for a short window in the middle of the day and open either side of it, which makes the timing of the visit the whole question. 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 shared forecourt is booked rather than chanced. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The wall between the kitchen and the hall is load-bearing blockwork rather than a stud, so an opening through it is a lintel job and not an afternoon with a bolster. The trade in this stock is a row of units under a block: a roller shutter, a shallow room behind it and a paved forecourt in front with bollards across the approach. Converted houses mean several sizes, not one. 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. A thin top over a wide plate wants a pad underneath.

Timber nosings chip under a slipped edge, so the treads are covered along the whole flight rather than only at the landings. 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 way in is walked before the van doors open. A suspension only works if the cones and the notice are actually there on the morning, and now and then a car is sitting in the bay regardless. The bases are the heavy half of the delivery, so the pallet is dealt with first while there are still hands free for it. Where the van cannot wait, the room has to be ready.

Not really, and there is no sense dressing it up. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It gets quoted, cut and fitted exactly as it would anywhere else on the patch. Where several adults share the cooking the kitchen is in use most of the day, so a fitting slot has to be agreed with more people than usual. 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. Buying twice costs more than buying deep once. Households sharing a house tend to want two prep areas rather than one, which usually means an island as well as a perimeter run. 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. A phased opening is planned as a single order.

The free end is what needs deciding early: square edge, mitred apron down the end, or a full waterfall to the floor, and a waterfall is cut in sequence off the same part of the slab. 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. One repeated size cuts better than six one-offs. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

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. 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. Uneven flags outside are why outdoor feet adjust. Tell us how close a van can get to the door, and whether the tables have to be moved regularly, since that decides the thickness before anything else does. Whoever manages the block controls the lift booking, the bin store and the visitor parking, and none of that sits in the gift of the household whose kitchen it is. The length of the lease is a legitimate reason to specify differently, and nobody should be talked into a decade of surface for five years of trading. Nothing is ordered against a verbal instruction.

The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. No payment is due before the template. Between the template and the fit the slab is nested, cut, mitred and dry-assembled on the bench, which is work you never see and is most of the wait. A good number of these blocks are large panel system builds, where the wall is a precast unit with a grouted joint and nothing gets cut into it. 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. Sizes agreed on paper before any slab is committed.

An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Where the permit is a digital session rather than a paper one, somebody in the house has to start it at the hour the van actually arrives. 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. Deliveries land before the doors open wherever possible.

The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. 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. A steep pitch shortens the tread and lengthens the reach, which leaves whoever is below carrying most of the weight for the full flight. 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. Larger diameters go in early, while the floor is still clear.

What decides between them is usually the wall: what it is built of, how flat it is, and where the sockets ended up. An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. Whole streets went up to two or three plans, so the house next door has the same kitchen and forty years of extensions have made none of them measure the same. That forecourt is the carry, and it is longer than it looks, so the pieces travel the last stretch on a trolley in a frame rather than being walked in by hand. A loading bay is the easiest delivery there is.