Britannia AuctionsCatering and hospitality equipment auctions in Bristol
There is a harbourside restaurant with no yard, a staff restaurant at an aerospace plant with a loading dock, a distribution shed canteen at Avonmouth with a forklift parked outside, and a village pub with a car park and a cellar. All four are catering sales and each one runs differently. The first is a van job with a loading bay to negotiate. The others are pallet jobs with a lorry.
Bristol has plenty of each. The city centre and the harbourside turn over restaurants and bars every year, and the north fringe and the port estates keep large workforces fed on site. Breweries and drinks firms across the city add bar equipment, coolers, taps and kegging kit to the mix.
We sell all of it by online timed auction. The sale is online and open to the whole of the UK, and the trade in Bath, Weston-super-Mare, Portishead and Yate is near enough to view in person. Small lots can travel by courier.
Harbourside kitchens and a van on a loading bay
The restaurants around the harbour and in the centre are the hardest part of the Bristol trade to clear and often the most valuable. The fit outs were expensive and the equipment is good. The access is a loading bay on a busy street with a time restriction, and some sites are a floor up or down with no lift. What a catering sale does need is somewhere a vehicle can stand and load, and that is one of the things we check before we agree a date.
We plan collection around the restrictions. Where it suits the site, the small lots go out early before the bay is needed, and the ranges, dishwashers, canopies and cold room panels are grouped into a booked slot with the handling the route calls for. Where the building defeats trade collection, the kitchen can be collected and sold from our own premises.
We describe the route out in the listing so bidders price it in.
Staff restaurants at Filton and on the port estate
The aerospace and defence sites at Filton and the supply firms across the north fringe run staff restaurants that would not look out of place in a hotel. When a contract caterer changes or a building is vacated, the kitchen behind that counter comes to market: combination ovens in banks, a bratt pan, a large servery, cold rooms and enough stainless steel benching to fill a lorry.
Avonmouth and Severnside are a different job again. A warehouse canteen is smaller, and where the unit has a dock leveller and the yard takes a large vehicle, the lots can be pallet wrapped and loaded with the site forklift. We confirm the access and the loading arrangements before the catalogue goes out.
These canteens are usually catalogued as a section inside the wider site sale, so contract caterers, school kitchens and pub operators can find them without reading through the plant, and one collection window covers the site.
What these sales can include
- Cooking ranges and ovens
- Combination ovens
- Fryers and griddles
- Cold rooms and walk in freezers
- Upright and under counter refrigeration
- Display and serve over counters
- Dishwashers and glasswashers
- Ice machines
- Espresso machines and grinders
- Stainless steel tables and sinks
- Extraction canopies
- Bar equipment and beer coolers
- Tables, chairs and banquette seating
- Tills and till systems
How the sale runs
We visit, agree what is in the sale and catalogue it. Each lot is photographed and described as it stands, with known faults noted. The sale is listed online and marketed to operators and dealers across the UK. Buyers view on a set day and bid online, with lots closing in sequence on the sale date.
Lots are offered as seen under the auction terms, and buyers are expected to inspect before bidding. The buyer pays the hammer price plus a buyer's premium, with VAT charged where it applies and shown separately. We take payment before anything is released.
Collection follows over a window agreed with you. Buyers arrange and pay for removal, and our staff attend so that services are dealt with correctly and the premises are left as agreed with the landlord.
The catering and hospitality equipment auctions page covers what a catering sale looks like, disconnecting services and extraction, what your lease allows you to sell, clean it, label it, leave it working.
Questions about selling in Bristol
- The restaurant is on the harbourside with a shared loading bay. How do buyers collect without blocking it?
We book them. Every buyer gets a collection slot, and the heavy lots are grouped into one slot with a crew we arrange. We tell the bay's other users the dates in advance. Where the bay allows it, the small lots, the espresso machine, the under counter fridges, the crockery and the chairs, go out first thing before the delivery traffic starts. If the bay has a time restriction that makes this impossible, the kitchen can be collected in one visit and sold from our own premises.
- The brewery tap room is closing but the brewhouse stays. Can you sell just the bar side?
Yes. We separate the bar, the coolers, the glasswasher, the furniture and the tills from the brewing plant and sell them on their own. Kegs and casks that carry a deposit are usually returnable and are not sold. Draught founts that belong to a drinks supplier are also left out, and we check that before we list. Bar equipment suits pubs and bars, and the trade in the city and in Bath and Portishead is within easy reach of a viewing day, with collection from the yard.
More questions about catering equipment