Brandon restaurant kitchens with a floor that mops clean
A restaurant kitchen floor takes hot water and grease every service, then a wet mop at close, and anywhere that water can find a seam it eventually will. What we build is one continuous surface that runs up the walls and down into the drains, with the grip set by where the cooks stand. Most of the decisions get made around your opening date.
Send us the details
There is a lot of new building east of Jackson, and a new building usually means a young slab under the kitchen.
Kevin Garner started ICM in 2021 as something to hand down to his family, and a kitchen floor gets laid by Kevin, Aaron, Kyler and Averie on a Duraflex system.
A new kitchen on a slab that is still drying out
Fresh concrete keeps giving off water for a long while after the pour, longer than most build schedules allow for. Seal that in under a kitchen coating too early and the moisture has nowhere to go, so it pushes up and raises blisters, often in the warm corner behind the line. We check the slab before we commit to a date.
That puts us in an awkward spot with an owner who has staff hired and an opening night booked. We would sooner tell you the concrete needs more drying time than lay it on schedule and come back to blisters under the walk in cooler. Call us early in the build and the slab can dry while the other trades finish their work.
Humidity in this part of Mississippi slows things down again. It stretches how long each coat stays soft and how long the next one has to wait, so in muggy weather the crew starts at first light and lets the cure set the pace. The coat that gets pushed through in the heat of the afternoon is the one that gives trouble later.
The restaurant epoxy page covers the work itself. For this one, send over the details or call 601-319-9619.
Building a kitchen floor that water cannot get under
Open concrete first
Every kitchen starts with the grinder and the dust extraction running. A new slab comes off the trowel too smooth for anything to grip, and an older one carries whatever the last tenant rolled over it. Either way it comes down to clean, open concrete, and cracks and low spots get filled before the first coat goes on.
A cove up every wall
The coating does not stop where the floor meets the wall. We form an integral cove that curves up from the floor in one piece, so there is no square corner for grease to settle in and no joint behind a baseboard for mop water to creep into. Door frames and the backs of equipment bays get it too.
Water finds the seam you skipped, so leave it no seam to find.
Carried into the drains
Floor drains and the trenches under the dish station take water every hour the kitchen runs. The coating is carried down to each drain and finished tight around it, so that water runs over a sealed edge. A floor that stops an inch short of the drain leaves exactly the gap where trouble begins.
Grip graded by station
Where the cooks stand on the line gets more aggregate in the coat, because that is where grease and water meet the soles of their shoes. The aisles where carts and dollies roll get a finer texture, so wheels track easily and the mop slides. It is one system, graded across the room by use.
What sends a kitchen floor back to bare concrete
Kitchen floors usually give out at the edges and the low spots, long before the middle of the room shows any wear.
Grout lines everywhere
Quarry tile was the old answer, and every grout line is a channel for grease to soak into and water to sit in. Once the grout starts to break down, water travels under the tiles and they begin to rock. A poured floor with no joints takes those lines away, which is most of the point of having one.
Flat to the wall, base glued on
A floor coated flat to the wall with a vinyl base glued over it leaves a gap the mop finds within days. Dirty water wicks behind the base, stays there and starts to smell. Forming the cove from the coating itself closes that gap where it starts, and nothing glued on is left to peel away.
High gloss on the cook line
A high gloss looks sharp on opening night and turns slick the moment fryer oil settles on it. Kitchens need texture where people work. Adding grip to a finished floor means another coat over the whole area, so the texture gets decided before the base ever goes down.
A topcoat that never met your degreaser
Some kitchen degreasers are strong enough to dull or soften a finish that was never chosen with them in mind. Whatever goes in the mop bucket every night is really the maintenance plan, so we ask about it up front and pick the topcoat to suit that chemistry.
Fitting the floor around your opening date
On a buildout the floor has its own place in the sequence. It goes in once the walls are finished and the overhead work is done, and before the equipment rolls in, because a coating laid around a range and a prep table leaves raw edges under them that nobody will ever clean. Tell your contractor early that the floor wants an empty room.
An existing restaurant is a different puzzle. Most can give us a closed day, or a run of hours after a late close, and the work gets planned around when the kitchen has to fire again. Kevin will tell you how long the floor needs before carts go across it, and if the weather turns damp that answer moves with it.
Then there is the inspection side. A floor with no grout, no seam at the wall and a sealed edge at every drain is simply easier to keep clean, and that is what anyone walking your kitchen with a clipboard is looking at. Color matters least of all. Plenty of kitchens go with a solid gray, which shows a spill clearly enough that it gets wiped.
Where Brandon sits for us
Brandon sits in Rankin County, east of Jackson and inside the radius we work from Laurel, and a kitchen job there gets its own day on the calendar.
The rest of what we coat in Brandon
Used a lot of flooring companies over the years on various jobs and lemme tell you you’re in good hands with these guys. From the quote to the finished job they were nothing short of professional.Verified review
Questions we get asked
Does the walk-in cooler get coated too?
Usually, if the box sits on the slab rather than its own insulated floor. The threshold is the spot that fails first, because carts bang it and water from the cooler sits there. We carry the coating through the doorway and build that edge up so the transition stays sealed and nothing catches a wheel.
What is integral cove base?
It is the floor coating carried up the wall in a smooth curve instead of stopping at a corner. There is no seam between floor and wall, so grease and mop water cannot collect there or wick behind a glued on base. In a kitchen it is the detail that matters most.
Will the floor be slippery when it is greasy?
Not where the grip is built in. Aggregate goes into the coat along the cook line and anywhere water lands, and the aisles get a finer texture so carts roll and mops glide. No floor is grippy under a pool of oil, so the routine of wiping spills still matters.
Can you work around our hours?
Usually. An open restaurant can often give us a closed day, and we plan the coats so the kitchen is back in use as soon as the cure allows. We will walk you through the timing for your room before we book anything, including what humid weather might add to it.
Which cleaners can we use on it?
Tell us what goes in your mop bucket now and we will choose the topcoat for that chemistry, which is better than asking your crew to change habits. Hot water and a degreaser are normal kitchen life. A floor specified for them is built to take that, night after night.
Do the drains get coated too?
Yes. The coating is carried down to each drain and sealed around it, because water runs toward those spots all shift and a weak edge shows up there first. If a drain sits higher than the floor around it, that gets dealt with before any coating goes down.
Walk Kevin through the kitchen before the equipment arrives
Call and tell Kevin where the line goes, where the drains sit and when you need to open. Nobody puts a number on it until he has stood on the slab, and the schedule gets built backward from your date.
Send over the details and look through finished floors while you decide.