Roadchef A Pret A Manger roll-out across motorway services.

Pret A Manger is opening units across Roadchef's motorway services, and we fit the floors for Artisan Contracts, the main contractor on the roll-out. Rownhams, Chester and Stafford are done, and more sites are on the programme.

Closed stores, fixed reopening dates

Each unit closes for its refit and has a hard date to reopen. Every day it stays shut is lost revenue, so every trade on site is sequenced, and if the flooring slips, everything behind it slips too. Our job is to be in, down and signed off on time, so the keys go back when they should and the doors open on the day. Where the programme calls for it, our teams work nights.

Stafford: stopped, flagged, fixed

During the strip-out at Pret Stafford, the team found the existing tiles were not bonded to the substrate, and in places had come away from it completely. Under years of finished floor sat a damp problem. A new floor laid over it would have started lifting again within months.

So we stopped, flagged it and sorted it properly. The tiles came up, the subfloor was ground back to remove contamination, and a liquid DPM went down across the whole area before a moisture-tolerant smoothing compound and the new floor. It added time, so the team worked day and night shifts and no other trade was pushed back. Pret Stafford reopened on a floor that will last.

The detail back of house

Behind the counter the floor is Altro Walkway 20, a black safety vinyl, coved 100mm up the walls on a cap and cove system. Floor and hygienic wall cladding meet in one sealed line, with no open joint for dirt or water to sit in, and the seams and cove corners are heat-welded.

Out front, Polyflor Expona treadplate LVT gives the customer area a hard-wearing diamond pattern, finished with a diminishing strip where it meets the existing ceramic tiles. The photographs here were taken at Rownhams as the floors went down.