Comments on: How to sell catering equipment and lease my space?

Question: How to sell catering equipment and lease my space?

lemoncello — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 08:09:53 -0800

I need to sell our catering company's equipment and get someone to take over our lease. What's the best way to do this? My husband just started as executive chef at a high-end lodge on a state park, 2.5 hours away from where we currently live. We've closed our catering company and need someone to take over our kitchen lease and/or buy our equipment ASAP. We're not asking for much on the equipment -- $15K for a four burner stove, convection oven, 22 qt bench mixer, manual slicer, work tables, shelving, 2 door refrigerator, freezer, bun racks, smallwares, and an ass load of display pieces and chafers.

The space is just a commercial kitchen and storage area with no storefront -- perfect for an off-premises caterer or wholesale baker. The rent is cheap, $685 a month, which includes water. We're located in North Little Rock, AR.

We've put an ad in the paper, contacted our friends, friends of friends, our Chamber leads group, posted something on a national caterers' forum, and contacted the local culinary school. We haven't got anyone interested who has the money. Craigslist hasn't caught on here yet. Is there anything else I should be doing or anyone I can talk to who may know of someone? We need to take care of this as soon as possible.

Feel free to email me at peachtreecatering at hotmail dot com.

By: SteveInMaine

SteveInMaine — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 08:55:08 -0800

I've never had experience with this, but have you considered auctioning the equipment, or a broker?

You might want to find a commercial realtor to find somebody to take over your lease.

By: AuntLisa

AuntLisa — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 09:50:44 -0800

Please be very careful using a broker to aucton off kitchen supplies. You usually cannot set a minimum, and could find yourselves selling your items at a substantial loss. Beware.

By: lemoncello

lemoncello — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 10:18:57 -0800

We've decided against auctions and brokers because we're not likely to get the price we need and we'd probably have to pay some sort of commission. We've priced this stuff so that whoever buys it is getting a pretty good deal, but it's enough that we can pay most of our outstanding debt.