Britannia AuctionsCatering and hospitality equipment auctions in Portsmouth
Portsmouth is an island, and most of the city's pubs, cafes and restaurants stand on streets laid out before anyone owned a van. A kitchen in a terraced pub in Fratton or a cafe near the seafront comes out through a side door onto a street with permit parking, and that decides how we sell it. Small lots go in the catalogue as they are. Big items, the range, the canopy, the cold room and the dishwasher line, are sold for dismantling by the buyer's own crew, with a booked slot and a van parked as close as the road allows.
The estates are easier. The Airport Industrial Estate at Hilsea has trade units with staff kitchens, and Trafalgar Wharf at Portchester has marine trades with a cafe or mess room on site.
We run catering sales in Portsmouth by online timed auction. Bidding is open to bidders well beyond the area, and Havant, Gosport, Waterlooville, Chichester and the Solent towns are an easy drive from a viewing day.
A side door, a permit bay and a fixed collection slot
On Portsea Island the collection plan matters more than the catalogue. We visit first and walk the route from the kitchen to the street. If the range has to come through the bar and out of a door narrower than the range is wide, we say so in the lot description and sell it for dismantling. If the only parking is a permit bay, we book a suspension with the council or time the collection for the quiet part of the day.
An awkward route is workable when it is in the catalogue and a problem when it is not, so we photograph the access as well as the lots.
A pub kitchen suits other pubs and cafes, and the trade in the city and in Gosport and Havant is a short trip from the viewing day. Buyers arrange their own crew for the heavy lots.
Mess rooms at Hilsea and the yards at Portchester
The trade units on the Airport Industrial Estate and Voyager Park are a different kind of sale. A staff kitchen in a workshop or a trade counter is a handful of lots, upright fridge, microwave, water boiler, dishwasher, a few tables, and it sells inside the sale of the workshop itself. The lots go out on a pallet through the roller shutter with the rest of the plant.
Trafalgar Wharf and the marine trades along the harbour add galley equipment and yard cafes. A boatbuilder fitting out a vessel may bid for a marine range or a galley fridge, and a sailmaker's canteen may suit the unit next door as much as a cafe.
Newer parks like Dunsbury Park at Havant have contract catered staff restaurants when a manufacturer moves in or out. Those are volume kitchens with combination ovens and a servery, and an incoming caterer can bid for the kitchen in place like anyone else.
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 Portsmouth
- Our pub is on a street with no parking at all. Can the sale still run from the premises?
Usually, yes. We sell from the premises wherever the lots can be got out safely, and a street with no parking is a planning problem rather than a stopper. We apply for a bay suspension or a loading slot where the council allows one, group the heavy lots into one collection with a single crew, and ask buyers of small lots to collect on foot or with a car nearby. Where the route is impossible, a first floor kitchen above a locked stair for example, the lots can come to our own premises and be sold there instead.
- Buyers on the Isle of Wight want to bid. Can they collect by ferry?
Yes. Buyers from the island bid online like anyone else and bring a van over on the ferry for collection day. We give them a slot that fits the sailings, and for a single heavy lot we can put it on a pallet so it goes on a trailer without a crew. Some island buyers ask us to hold lots for a few days while they arrange a crossing, and we can do that from our own premises by arrangement.
More questions about catering equipment