San Francisco Restaurant (Market Street), May, 2023

This Market Street restaurant in San Francisco needed a long list of cosmetic and finish work, and it was one of the more enjoyable jobs we’ve done, because it offered so much variety.

A little of everything

The scope covered most of what a commercial space needs to look finished:

• Filling gaps in the wall paneling so it read as one continuous surface
• Priming and painting throughout
• Fixing several light fixtures
• New door casings
• General finish carpentry wherever something was loose, gapped, or incomplete
• Matching caulks for the wood veneer around the kitchen pony wall, so the joints disappear into the wood rather than standing out as white lines

That last detail is typical of finish work. Caulk and putty exist to hide small gaps and tolerances, and the right color makes the difference between a seam you notice and one you don’t.

The security door

One item was a steel security door at the front, which also serves as a fire exit. A steel door painted by brush shows every stroke, so we used an industrial sprayer to give it a smooth, even, factory-like finish.

We had put down a drop cloth, but it wasn’t large enough, and a little overspray landed on the restaurant’s epoxy floor. It came right up with acetone, with no damage to the floor. It cost a couple of hours of cleanup and was a minor inconvenience. The lesson was simple: use a bigger drop cloth.

When things go wrong

These things happen on a construction site. They happen very rarely to us, but they still happen. Every so often, a screw going into backer board finds a pipe that isn’t where it should be or isn’t protected by a shield plate. Or a client doesn’t mention the PEX water lines of a heated floor, and demolition cuts into one. We see something like that maybe once a year, which is a low rate given the amount of work we do, and we work hard to avoid it.

When it does happen, two things matter. First, we take responsibility: we cover the actual damage and any costs that follow from it, so the owner is never left exposed. Second, we deal with it calmly. A cool head fixes a problem faster than a panicked one, and a client who sees a mistake handled well usually trusts you more afterward, not less.

This job finished clean, on schedule, and with a restaurant that looked cared for from the front door to the kitchen.

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