Britannia AuctionsCatering and hospitality equipment auctions in Coventry
Where there are vehicle plants there are staff restaurants, and Coventry has plenty of both. The big automotive sites and their suppliers on estates such as Binley and Bayton Road run canteens, and the contract caterers who operate them change on a cycle. Each change, and each plant closure, can put a heavy duty kitchen up for sale with a loading bay right outside it.
Then there is the city itself. Two universities fill the centre with cafes, coffee shops, takeaways and bars that turn over every year, and the hotels along the A45 towards the airport serve business travellers and conference trade. Leamington Spa and Warwick, a short drive south, have a restaurant trade of their own near enough to come and see the lots.
We sell catering and hospitality equipment by online timed auction, on site where possible. Tell us what the building is and when it needs to be empty.
Feeding the factory
A works restaurant at an automotive plant is built to serve hundreds of people in a forty minute break. That means bulk cooking equipment: bratt pans, boiling pans, large combination ovens, hot cupboards in runs of ten metres, a flight dishwasher and a walk in freezer. It is not the kit a small restaurant wants. Contract caterers, colleges, hospitals and the bigger pub groups are the market for it, and online bidding opens the sale to buyers from any part of the country.
Access on a works site is usually the simpler half of the job, but it is still checked: the goods entrance, the hard standing, the turning space, and whether a forklift and a trained driver will be available on collection day. The harder part is ownership. The site often owns the equipment and the caterer only operates it, or the caterer brought some and the site bought the rest. We go through the catering contract with you before we list anything.
If the plant is closing, the restaurant is usually one section of a larger site sale alongside the production plant.
Student takeaways and airport hotels
The city centre turns over food businesses at the end of every academic year. A takeaway or a coffee shop that has not made it through the summer leaves behind a short list of decent lots: a pizza oven, a couple of fryers, an espresso machine and grinder, a serve over counter and the display fridges. We run these as small sales, or we combine several into one mixed catering auction so buyers make one trip.
The hotels along the A45 and around Middlemarch Business Park are the other regular source. A hotel refit puts a full kitchen and a function suite of furniture on the market at once, and where there is a loading bay the collection is straightforward, which we confirm on the visit.
Bidding is online and open nationally, and the trade in Nuneaton, Rugby, Kenilworth and Solihull, and in Birmingham along the A45, is well placed for the viewing day. Espresso machines and smaller cooking equipment can travel by courier, which is why those lots get the fullest photographs.
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 Coventry
- Our unit is in a shopping precinct with no vehicle access. Can you still sell from the premises?
Usually, with a collection plan. We look for the service road or the rear loading area before we agree the sale, and we check the door sizes, the floor levels and the turning space at the same time. Buyers are given a time slot and the route, and the handling for the heavy lots is agreed to suit it. If the only way out is through the front during trading hours, the kitchen can be brought to our own premises and sold from there instead.
- The caterer left a lot of equipment behind when the contract ended. Can we sell it?
Only if it is yours. Read the catering contract to see who owns what was installed, and write to the former caterer asking them to confirm they have no claim on anything left on site. Keep the reply. Once ownership is clear, the equipment can be listed like any other. Anything on lease, hire purchase or finance remains the funder's property until it is settled, and it can only be sold with their agreement.
More questions about catering equipment