Commercial · Bars
Bars and back bars, made and fitted by our own joiners
Bar counters and back bars for hotels, restaurants and members’ clubs: drawn for the room, made in our Poole workshop and fitted by the joiners who made them.
We make bar counters and back bars for hotels, restaurants and members’ clubs. Each bar is drawn for its room, built in our Poole workshop and fitted by our own joiners around the trading day. We made the bar and back bar at The Kitchen at Chewton Glen, and the curved bar at Club Gascon.
A bar is the hardest-working joinery in a room. Guests lean on the front and see it from every table; behind it, the back bar holds and shows the bottles, glasses and wine. It has to look as though it belongs to the building and still take a full house every night.
Two bars from our workshop are below, with what each shows about how a bar is made.
The Kitchen at Chewton Glen
For The Kitchen, the cookery school and restaurant at Chewton Glen, we made the bar. A fluted copper front wraps the bar carcass and stands on a lit plinth, so the metal glows along its length in the evening.
Behind it the back bar runs the room, with oak wine racks built into the joinery above the bottles. Read the Chewton Glen project.
The Kitchen at Chewton Glen · the bar front
Club Gascon, Smithfield
For the 2017 refit of Club Gascon, the Michelin-starred French restaurant in Smithfield, London, we made the curved bar, with the panelling and the fitted detail of the dining room.
The bar was set out and built at our bench in Dorset, then delivered and installed on site, worked around the restaurant’s programme so it could reopen on schedule. Club Gascon closed in March 2026, after almost three decades. Read the Club Gascon project.
Club Gascon · the bar in build
The bar counter
A bar counter is three pieces of joinery working together: the front that guests see and lean on, the top they are served across, and the plinth at the floor that takes the kicks of feet and stools.
Each is drawn for the room. At Chewton Glen the front is fluted copper over the carcass, standing on a lit plinth; at Club Gascon the bar follows a curve, set out and built at our bench in Dorset before it went to London.
Back bars
The back bar stands against the wall behind the counter: the shelving, racks and cupboards where bottles, glasses and wine are kept and shown. We make back bars with the storage and lighting built in, in the timber and finish of the rest of the room.
At The Kitchen the back bar runs the room, with oak wine racks built into the joinery above the bottles.
The Kitchen at Chewton Glen · the back bar
Bars for hotels, restaurants and clubs
A bar is rarely made on its own. We make it with the joinery around it: banquette and booth seating, counters and serveries, panelling and screens, so the room is drawn and made by one workshop. At The Kitchen at Chewton Glen we made the bar, the back bar, the booths, the oak-framed screens and the serveries together.
We work to the programme, alongside the architect, the contractor and the interior designer, and out of hours where a hotel, restaurant or club has to keep trading. See commercial & hospitality joinery, shopfitting and bespoke reception desks.
How a project runs
From drawings to the final fitCommon questions
Bars & back barsWhat is a back bar?
The back bar is the joinery against the wall behind the bar counter: the shelves, racks and cupboards where bottles, glasses and wine are kept and displayed. We draw it with the counter, so the two work as one.
Can you make a curved bar?
Yes. The bar we made for Club Gascon in London is curved. It was set out and built at our bench in Dorset, then delivered and fitted on site.
Can a new bar be fitted without closing for long?
We plan the installation around your trading hours and work out of hours where the business has to keep running. The bar is made and finished in our workshop, so the time on site is spent fitting it.
Can you make a bar to our designer’s drawings?
Yes. We regularly work to an architect’s or interior designer’s drawings, adding the workshop detailing that makes the bar buildable, or we draw it from a brief. Either way, you approve set-out drawings and samples before anything is made.
How do we start?
Send us your drawings, or a few photos of the room with rough sizes. We come back with a guide price, then visit to survey and talk it through before anything is drawn in detail.
Further reading
Where we work
Bars & back bars for businesses in Poole, Sandbanks, Canford Cliffs, Branksome Park and Bournemouth — and across Dorset, the New Forest & Hampshire.
By appointment
Arrange a consultation.
Send us your drawings, or a few photos of the room with rough sizes. We’ll come back with a guide price, then arrange a visit to survey. No obligation, and no fixed catalogue.