I attach the cabinets to the wall and also at the face frame of each cabinet. The soffit or crown molding or what ever you want to call it is usually attached to the face frame of the cabinet.

our cabinets are attached to teh wall, NOT the soffit. cabinets have a certain area along the back that is re-enforced to handel the mounting. the top is not.

your BEST bet is to ask the cabinet guy if he will be attaching to the soffit as well, or just the wall.

my soffits are not even strong enough to be considered load bearing. i will just be glad when i have the money for new cabinets so i can rip the soffit out.

I'm confused, do you mean trim at the top of the cabinets covering a small space between top and ceiling, probably used to ease any small discrepencies, or do you mean actual constructed soffits? Because it sounds like the cabinet guy wants to build a soffit over the fridge to fill in space.

Personally, I hate built soffits, what you end up with is multible sq footage of useless space in your kitchen that could be put to MUCH better use by filling the space with more cabinets, or having space above your cabinets for decorative storage of odd items.

I'd recommend you confer with your cabinet guy, preferably with a pencil and paper at hand for a drawing of what he has in mind.