Restaurants & Food Service

Sports Grill Shoots, Scores with a Dur-A-Flex Floor

Located within walking distance of numerous colleges, The Recovery Room Sports Grill in Albany’s Hilton Garden Inn is a popular spot for sports fanatics of all ages. With original seating from Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium and memorabilia covering every inch of wall space, it was clear that the floors needed to tie into the sports haven theme as well. The Grill’s owner envisioned a floor customized with sports themed graphics: footballs, baseballs, basketballs and logos that pay tribute to the local universities’ athletic teams. He turned to Dur-A-Flex to provide him with a specific, decorative floor that could stand up to the traffic of his busy establishment.

To meet the needs of this custom project, Dur-A-Flex’s Dur-A-Gard SL system was selected and installed. Once the floor cured, over 300 graphics from various sports themed graphics were laid out throughout the surface then sealed with a clear epoxy topcoat to improve the visibility of each graphic.

The finished floor completes the Grill’s sporty look just as the facility owner envisioned and is the place to be for every game!  

New floor installs in less than 24 hours over concrete with high-moisture levels

A Dur-A-Flex methyl methacrylate (MMA) floor was originally specified for this fast-track construction project. However, when testing of the freshly poured concrete revealed much higher levels of moisture vapor than allowed, plans changed quickly. With the overall project already behind schedule, installing a typical moisture mitigation system could add up to two more days to the project. A flooring solution that could simultaneously meet the time demands and the concrete’s high moisture could not be found with a resinous system. That’s where a Hybri-Flex™ system came in.

Hybri-Flex™ is Dur-A-Flex’s hybrid series of high performance flooring systems. Where most resinous flooring systems consist of epoxy, urethane or MMA, Hybri-Flex™ supersedes these with a combination of two or more resins, harnessing their key attributes, to provide an all inclusive flooring solution. The Hybri-Flex™ MQ system that was chosen utilizes an 1/8” cementitious urethane base coat combined with MMA topcoats to provide a moisture tolerant, durable and fast-curing floor. The MQ system also features decorative quartz for an attractive appearance and non-skid surface. 

A significant trait of the Hybri-Flex™ systems is that they can be installed on concrete as new as five days old. This is possible because the system tolerates up to 12 lbs. of moisture vapor pressure, triple that of many traditional flooring options. This feature can shave weeks off a construction schedule. MMA topcoats are revered for their extremely fast curing times, which allow installers to apply all the topcoats in a matter of hours rather than several days.

In the end, a crew of four people completed this project and had the restaurant equipment in place just 18 hours after the contractor walked onto the jobsite. The built-in moisture mitigation system and fast curing MMA in Hybri-Flex™ MQ offered protection against elevated moisture levels in the floor as well as notable time savings on the overall installation.

In addition to the Hybri-Flex™ systems, Dur-A-Flex also produces quality epoxy, urethane and MMA floor and wall systems for all industries. The versatile, seamless applications are customized to each facility’s needs and provide improved safety, minimal downtime, moisture risk reduction and easy maintenance. 

Restauranteur Says “No” to Grout!

At a charming restaurant situated on the outskirts of Boston, owner and head chef Dave Becker knew that he had to make a change in his kitchen. After 12 years of operating on a quarry tile floor it had become clear that the surface couldn’t handle the demands of his busy kitchen. With discolored and disintegrating grout lines, Becker was forced to regrout the kitchen almost annually, saying, “It’s a busy restaurant. I figured it was pretty standard to regrout every year or two.” Becker found that the grout lines surrounding the tiles created places to catch, as he calls it, “all the gross stuff,” leaving a floor that was never clean enough for his satisfaction. In an effort to overcome this, a hose and central drain were installed in the kitchen so that all the dropped foodstuffs and grease could easily be washed away. Yet, the constant moisture from the wash downs only destroyed the grout faster by making its way underneath the tiles and into the substrate, leaving the basement below damp.

After undergoing a floor evaluation, it was determined that Dur-A-Flex’s power-house system - Poly-Crete® was the flooring solution. Proven to stand up to harsh kitchen environments and unfazed by lactic acids, Poly-Crete easily stands up to the dropped foodstuffs.

With a planned shutdown from Sunday to Monday, the Poly-Crete install was completed. When Sweet Basil’s staff opened their doors on Tuesday morning a curious sight greeted them. Gone were the once familiar broken tiles and dirty grout lines and, in their place, a seamless surface.

Becker says his employees have found the surface easier to clean; daily wash downs accompanied by a squeegee are all that’s necessary. With the floor sloped down to the drains, excess moisture, the risk of slips and falls and bacteria growth caused by standing water have all been eliminated.

“Believe it or not, I’m actually looking forward to cleaning it. It’s so easy spraying it down and it all goes right down the drain!” says Becker. Aside from the practical benefits, Becker is equally happy with the look the new floor has brought to his kitchen. “I think it looks so great, I love it. I honestly can’t believe anyone uses quarry tile anymore!”

New York Banquet Facility Shines with Mica-Flex Flooring

With over four decades of hosting weddings and other formal events, mother and son team, Karen and John Jacobi wanted to add a little extra shine to their popular venue. They began by choosing a new name, J’s White Elephant, and initiated plans to reinvent their image by renovating their facility. In order to project a high-end image, one of the most important aspects of this revamp was replacing the flooring in the banquet hall. A collection of floor coverings including tile, laminate, carpet and epoxy-covered tile begged for consistency and a more formal look.

While examining the samples offered by their flooring contractor, the Jacobi’s bypassed the traditional epoxy chip systems and honed in on Dur-A-Flex’s new metallic system. The shimmer and shine from the Mica-Flex flakes affirmed the Jacobi’s had found exactly what they were looking for to define J’s White Elephant’s new image! They chose Gold Mica-Flex for the bar area and Nickel for the main banquet hall area.

Removal of the old floors posed a challenge to the installers but the crew worked with extreme diligence, ensuring a clean, concrete substrate was all that remained once the prepping phase was completed. The Mica-Flex E, an epoxy based system, was installed over 4,000 square feet in less than a week, reducing impact to the rest of the facility’s renovation schedule.

John notes that it was a “drastic difference” when he saw the floors for the first time. Aside from the visual upgrade, the new floors have also helped to reduce some of his safety concerns. “We were very concerned about slip resistance, especially being in a restaurant setting. We discussed this with the contractor and he put aluminum oxide in the topcoat. It’s the most slip resistant floor in our entire building,” he concluded.

With the renovations completed, J’s White Elephant re-opened its doors in early December 2012. “My mother and I love the floors. It was one of the bigger tag items of our renovation so to see it look so great, really gives us the reassurance that we made a great choice. Now, when customers come through our doors, the first thing that literally every single person says is ‘I love the floors!’ We both think it looks absolutely great,” says John.