Britannia AuctionsCatering and hospitality equipment auctions in Doncaster
Drivers have to eat. Doncaster has more lorry movements than most towns its size, with iPort, West Moor Park and Redhouse Interchange running around the clock, and the cafes and canteens that feed those drivers and shifts are where much of the town's catering equipment lives. Add the mess rooms at the rail engineering depots and the pubs and hotels in the town, and there is a steady flow of kitchens coming to market.
Many of those sales are driven by an administrator's timetable rather than a lease. When a haulier or a cafe operator goes into insolvency the practitioner needs a value quickly and a sale that clears the site by a set date. We work to those dates.
We sell by online timed auction. Bidding is open to buyers from every part of the UK, and the trade in Rotherham, Barnsley, Sheffield and Wakefield is close enough to inspect the lots before the sale closes.
Fryers and griddles from the roadside cafes
A transport cafe kitchen is built around breakfast. Flat top griddles, large fryers, a bain marie for the beans, a six slice toaster and a high volume tea urn or bean to cup machine make up most of it, with an upright fridge and a chest freezer behind. None of it is glamorous, and the market for it is other cafes and takeaways that want the same equipment for the same job. Griddles and fryers are compact enough for a van, and the trade in Barnsley, Rotherham, Scunthorpe and Goole is close enough to attend a viewing day.
The buildings vary. A cafe in a portable cabin on a yard at Kirk Sandall or Wheatley Hall Road is a van job with the door open. A cafe unit inside one of the big sheds off the M18 is a loading bay job inside the site's security hours. We describe the access in the listing so buyers bring the right vehicle.
Working to an administrator's dates
Insolvency sales run on a shorter clock than a retirement. The practitioner usually wants a written valuation within days and the premises empty before the landlord's next rent date or the end of a licence to occupy. We work to that. We visit, give an opinion on value, catalogue on site and put the sale online, and the viewing day and the collection window are set around the date the keys go back.
Gas and extraction are the parts that slow an insolvency sale down. Ranges and fryers must be disconnected and capped by a registered engineer, and buyers never disconnect services themselves. Where the supply is still on, equipment that can safely be run stays connected for the viewing day so it can be demonstrated, and the rest is isolated. The engineer can be booked for collection day where that is agreed.
Where the site cannot be held open long enough, the kitchen can be moved to our own premises for sale. There is a transport cost to set against the rent and the date the keys have to go back.
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 Doncaster
- The cafe was in a cabin on our haulage yard. Can we sell the cabin with the kit?
Yes, if you own it. A portable cabin is a lot like any other and there are buyers for them, but it needs a crane or a hiab to move and the buyer must arrange that. We list the cabin separately from the catering equipment inside it, because the two sets of buyers are different. If the cabin is on hire it goes back to the hire company and only the kitchen is sold. Tell us on the first call and we will plan the collection around the lift.
- We supply agricultural machinery and have a staff kitchen. Is it worth putting in a sale?
On its own, probably not, and we will say so. A staff kitchen with a domestic cooker and a fridge has little trade value. A canteen fitted with a commercial range, a dishwasher, refrigeration and a servery is different, and it can be added to a machinery sale on the same site, where it is in front of everyone viewing the yard. We look at it when we look at the rest of the yard, and if it adds nothing we leave it out rather than pad the catalogue.
More questions about catering equipment