What's underneath
Above a kitchen
UnderneathA restaurant or takeaway
Same building type, different rhythm entirely. A kitchen is quiet in the morning and impossible in the evening, and it brings deliveries, extraction and a back alley that is somebody else’s working space.
What that actually means
The timing is inverted. Above a shop the difficult period is the middle of the day; above a kitchen it is the evening and it is considerably more difficult, because the pavement fills with people waiting and the back is full of deliveries.
There is often a rear route, and it is usually the kitchen’s. Bin stores, extraction ducting, gas bottles and delivery crates all live back there, and it is a working area rather than a convenient alternative entrance.
Extraction takes up space you cannot see from inside. A duct running up the back of the building narrows the one route a wardrobe might otherwise have taken through a window.
Grease and heat make the stairwell different. Surfaces are slicker than they look and the stairwell is warmer, which matters more than it sounds when you are carrying something heavy repeatedly.
Deliveries are relentless and not negotiable. A van that blocks a kitchen’s delivery access will be asked to move by somebody who cannot take no for an answer, because their supply chain does not wait.
What we do about it
Plan around the kitchen’s trade rather than around ours, which usually means earlier rather than later
Establish whether the rear route is genuinely usable or is simply the kitchen’s working space
Check what the extraction takes up before assuming a window route exists
Keep the delivery access clear, because that is the one thing that will get us moved on
The thing to do
Go early. It is the single most useful decision on this kind of move and it is almost always available.
Get a quote
Moving out of a flat above a kitchen?
A shop, a kitchen, a deck, or your own front door — and which street. Those two answers get us most of the way to a price that will not change when we arrive.