Kitchen Linen In Clerkenwell On The Kitchen Round

Yes — Clerkenwell sits on the EC1R round, 7 days, 8.1 miles from our Wembley plant.

• Shared with Farringdon, Farringdon Without and Aldersgate — one van, one run, which is what keeps a small kitchen sensible to price.
• The driver knows the service entrances around Mansion House, Old Street and Angel — which matters when the drop has to miss prep by half an hour.
• A missed window here is picked up on the next round rather than the next week, because Clerkenwell is only 8.1 miles out.
• 464 kitchens around EC1R are already on this round — so the vehicle is sized for kitchen work rather than adapted to it.

Sizing is where most kitchen accounts go wrong, so we do it on site.

• Every section is sized at setup — not estimated from a headcount.
• A new commis goes on the account the same week — brigades in Clerkenwell change constantly, and the account is built for that.
• Garments are named — which takes the sorting job off the pass entirely.
• Par counts are re-set after the first month — and again after your first busy season, which is where opening figures usually fail.

Outside both, because prep is the window most suppliers hit.

• The time is agreed when the account opens — it goes on the round sheet, not into a delivery window.
• Timed around Mansion House and the traffic that comes with it.
• If a drop is missed, a missed window here is picked up on the next round rather than the next week.
• A relief driver inherits the window with the route — the timing is a property of the account, not of one driver remembering it.

No long-term tie-in and no exit fee.

• Terms flex with seasonal demand — you are not held to a peak figure through a quiet quarter.
• Nothing needs you to be out of your current contract first — the count and the quote commit you to nothing.
• Stock arrives before the old supplier is stood down — you are never between suppliers.
• If it is not working, say so — the fix is usually a number on the sheet rather than a new contract.

Both, and mixed accounts are normal. One collection covers whichever way each line is set up.

• Hire — we own the garments, replace them on wear and manage sizing as the brigade changes.
• Wash-only — your own embroidered jackets come back to you, the same garments, named, not pooled.
• Plenty of kitchens do both — hired cloths and aprons, own-branded jackets on wash-only.
• You can move a line between the two later — kitchens often start on hire and move their jackets across once the branding is settled.

Always. Kitchen work never follows table linen through the machine.

• Grease, protein and scorch need their own wash — and their own temperature.
• Whites never run through the cycle the table linen was on — that transfer is what dulls a brigade's whites inside a month.
• Colour-coded cloths stay in their own classification — which matters on any site that needs an audit trail.
• Every load is temperature logged — which matters on any site that has to show an inspector how its linen is handled.

There is no honest price list for kitchen work. Kitchen work is priced on the brigade and the covers, so a published list would be a guess.

• We count a real week in Clerkenwell before quoting — including the summer weeks, which is where most estimates fall over.
• No minimum order — size barely moves the per-garment price.
• The count includes your busy season — which is where most estimates fall over; a figure taken in February will not survive August.
• The count and the quote cost nothing — and commit you to nothing.

Yes. Contract catering, schools and care homes are all on the rounds.

• 2 school kitchens around EC1R are already on the round — so term-time volume changes are planned rather than improvised.
• 1 care home kitchens nearby — with the same named-garment handling.
• Colour-coded cloths and named whites — so the coding still means something when the cloths come back.
• Contract caterers running several sites — are handled as one account across Islington, not as separate customers.