Used Equipment

We scored big at the expense of another business today. A local company that specializes in home replacement meals closed it's doors after two years in business. All of their equipment was in excellent condition. It never experienced the wear and tear of a busy restaurant line. I'm glad I woke up early to take a chance and be there before anyone else, as everything sold in the first 30 minutes. We were able to secure commercial wire shelving, stainless steel tabling, some refrigerated prep tables, carts, an under counter dishwasher for the cheese cutting area (yay!), a robot coupe and lots of storage containers. We're going to need these items for when we start production at Hastings, so it doesn't hurt to get them at a better price now.

I bumped into another chef at the equipment sale who has purchased a building with a restaurant on East Hastings between Dunlevy and Gore. He plans on changing the restaurant into something with an Eastern European theme to it. He said he used to own a Ukrainian or Russian restaurant on Main Street.

Our final plans are ready to submit to the COV for approval. I'm glad we are not in a rush so we can take our time and do things right. We've got Russell Food Equipment on board to help with the design of the kitchen. They built our very first kitchen at 10th & Alma over 20 years ago. I'm sure they will help think of the things we haven't planned for. We still have the original Quest double oven at the 2nd avenue store. We've taken good care of it, and it has served us well. The dilemma with it being at 2nd ave is that we put it in the kitchen first because it is so big, then we built the walls around it. Russell/Quest is confidant that they can disassemble it and rebuild it on Hastings for a fraction of the price of what a new one would cost today, which is about $11,000. We've decided to go with electric steam kettles and tilting skillets in the kitchen. We've got loads of power, and the cost is substantially cheaper than the gas units. I can't wait to cook in those. They are great for making things like onion jam and red wine veal jus. I'm really looking forward to having an increased selection of prepared food items at the East Hastings location.