Shopfitting · Counters & serveries
Counters and serveries, made for the people who work behind them
Serveries, restaurant counters and shop counters: drawn for the room and the people behind them, made in our Poole workshop and fitted by our own joiners.
We make serveries, restaurant counters and shop counters, drawn for the room and for the people who work behind them. Each counter is built in our Poole workshop, topped in timber or solid surface, and fitted by our own joiners. At The Kitchen at Chewton Glen we made the serveries, with their banks of oak pigeon-hole drawers.
A counter is seen from one side and worked from the other. From the front it has to look as though it belongs to the room; behind it, the people serving need the storage, the drawers and the space to work all day.
So a counter is drawn from both sides at once, made at the bench and fitted by the joiners who made it.
Serveries
A servery is the working counter of a restaurant: where food and drink are set out, plated or handed over, with the storage the staff need built in beneath it.
At The Kitchen, the cookery school and restaurant at Chewton Glen, the serveries carry banks of oak pigeon-hole drawers with finger pulls, set into painted carcasses beside the fridge housings: storage the staff use all day, and one of the textures that gives the room its warmth. Read the Chewton Glen project.
The Kitchen at Chewton Glen · oak drawer banks
Shop and display counters
For shops we make sales counters, service points and cash desks, with the display cabinets and shelving around them, made to the brand and built to take the traffic of a busy floor.
The boutique cabinets here are lit from within and detailed to show the product. See shopfitting & shopfronts.
Retail display joinery
Counter tops
The top takes the most wear of any part of a counter. We make tops in timber, or fabricate them in Corian and other solid surfaces, which are hard-wearing, non-porous and easy to clean, and can be heat-formed into curves and joined without a visible seam.
On this hotel reception, a seamless solid-surface top runs over a painted timber front, so the whole counter reads as one piece. See Corian & solid surface and bespoke reception desks.
Hotel reception · solid-surface top
Drawn with the rest of the room
A counter is often one part of a bigger piece of work. At The Kitchen at Chewton Glen we made the serveries together with the bar and back bar, the banquette booths and the oak-framed screens, so the room reads as one.
We work to the programme, alongside the architect, the contractor and the interior designer, and out of hours where a restaurant, hotel or shop has to keep trading. See commercial & hospitality joinery.
How a project runs
From drawings to the final fitCommon questions
Counters & serveriesWhat is a servery?
A servery is a counter where food and drink are set out, plated or handed over, with storage built in beneath it for the people serving.
What can a counter top be made from?
Timber, or a solid surface such as Corian, which is non-porous, hard-wearing and can be joined without a visible seam. The front can be solid timber, veneer or painted timber, to match the rest of the room.
Can a new counter 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 counter is made and finished in our workshop, so the time on site is spent fitting it.
Can you make a counter 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 counter 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 space 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
Counters & serveries 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 space with rough sizes. We’ll come back with a guide price, then arrange a visit to survey. No obligation, and no fixed catalogue.