Restaurant Floor Renovation at plates, Shoreditch

This summer we refloored plates on Old Street, the UK’s first vegan restaurant to win a Michelin star.

Beautiful food. Beautiful joinery. And a floor that looked like a newsagent’s stock room and made the tables wobble.

The old uneven slate tile floor at plates restaurant, Shoreditch, before the renovation

The floor that had to go

When a room is this good, a tired floor drags everything else down with it. It’s the biggest surface in the room. Every guest walks across it, every chair scrapes on it, and every wobbly table gets a folded napkin wedged under one leg.

The plates team had got everything else right. The floor was the last thing left.

Close-up of the old slate tiles at plates restaurant before the new wood floor

Why we didn’t rip the tiles up

Most people assume a new floor means tearing the old one out first. Sometimes it does. Here, it didn’t.

The old tiles were uneven, but they were structurally sound. Lifting them would have meant noise, dust and more days closed, and it can damage the screed underneath, which turns a flooring job into a building job.

So we left them where they were and levelled over them with compound to get a flat, solid base.

A floor is only as good as what’s underneath it. Get the base right and everything on top behaves. Skip it and no amount of expensive timber will save you.

What went down on top

A smoked, textured engineered plank from our Highbury Range, picked to look like it had always been there. Not a shiny new floor that announces itself. A floor that sits quietly under the food and the joinery and lets them do the talking.

Close-up of the smoked, textured engineered wood plank fitted at plates restaurant

Then we gave it an extra coat of oil. A restaurant floor takes a full service every night: chair legs, spills, staff on their feet for hours. That extra coat is what keeps it looking good long after opening night.

Finishing the new wood floor along the banquette seating at plates restaurant

Four days

Four days later, the floor was done.

For a restaurant, every day closed is a day of no covers. Not having to strip out the old floor is a big part of why this one was quick.

The finished dining room at plates, Shoreditch, with the new smoked wood floor

Sunlight across the new wood floor by the windows at plates restaurant

If your floor is fighting you

If you run or design a restaurant, bar or hotel and the floor is letting the room down, the fix is often simpler than a full strip-out. It depends on what’s underneath, and the only way to know is to come and look.

We supply and fit, so the person telling you what’s possible is the same team that’ll be doing it. Our showroom is at 5 Hackney Road, a short walk from Old Street, or we’re happy to come to you.