Similar to the one I made in oak, the other piece of hardwood board I had for this project was ash.
The jig was a bit cobbled together, which mostly worked fine for doing 2 of them. The 1-inch spacer did slip, which is where the divot I was filling with sawdust came from. Doing any more of them I'd definitely want a more thought-out jig (or CNC).
I initially had a lot of burning on test pieces. Turned out my router bit just got dull a lot faster than I expected, and after sharpening on a DMT it cut fine without any special care to speed.
I put butcher block conditioner on it, though I didn't know if that's enough to protect it from dirty pans.
Yeah, my parents had one that was the inspiration for this. I wonder if there was a wave of popularity for this design or one manufacturer at some point.
I think it is a common high school shop class project. Or similar.
I'm pretty sure it was a basic design at Ikea 10 or so years ago.