Refurbished Commercial Counter Top Fridges

Holding product that is already cold within reach of the person serving. A sandwich line keeps its fillings in one. A sushi counter keeps its toppings in one. A cafe keeps cold drinks or pots of yoghurt in one where the customer can see them. In every case the cabinet is doing short-range service, not storage.

What it is not for is pulling warm product down to temperature or holding a day's stock. That is a job for a cabinet with the refrigeration capacity and the air movement to match, which is why most kitchens pair a counter top unit with a refurbished commercial upright fridge out the back.

Footprints vary widely, from narrow units that hold a couple of pans to long cabinets that run most of a service counter, so work from the dimensions on the product page for the unit you are looking at rather than a general rule.

Then add clearance. These cabinets vent, usually at the front or one side, and a unit pushed hard against a splashback or jammed between a till and a toaster will run hot. Allow for the lid or door swinging open too, because a glass lid that fouls an overhead shelf makes the cabinet useless where you wanted it.

Not beside a heat source. A counter top cabinet has a small condenser working in the warmest air in the building — bench height, in a kitchen — so standing it next to a sandwich press, a toaster or a coffee machine group head makes a difficult job harder.

Not in direct sun through a shopfront window either, and not where the vent faces a wall. If the only available spot is a hot one, a cabinet with the condenser mounted remotely or a different shape of unit altogether is the better answer than hoping a small machine will cope.

A sound unit with a clean condenser and reasonable clearance will, provided it is loaded with product that is already cold. The failure mode is almost always the way it is used rather than the machine: lids left open, pans refilled with product straight from the bench, and food piled above the pan line where the cold air cannot reach it.

Keep pans filled to the level the cabinet was designed for, swap them out from the main fridge rather than topping them up warm, and keep a thermometer in the cabinet rather than trusting a display. On a refurbished unit, check the lid seals and the pan gaskets early, because those are the parts that take the most handling.

Usually, but check before you commit. These cabinets are built around gastronorm sizes, and gastronorm containers are made to a common standard, so a full, half or third pan will drop into most wells.

The catch is depth and the small differences between brands. A pan that is a few millimetres out on the rim can sit proud and break the seal along the top of the well. Buy the pans from the same supplier as the cabinet where you can, and look at gastronorm trays for the shallow sizes a service line actually uses.

Mostly yes. Refurbished stock arrives as individual machines, so the model you are looking at today may be the only one of it we have. Two matching cabinets for a symmetrical counter is the hardest ask in this range.

Tell us what you are after and we will watch for it, or look at the new range where a matching pair is simply a stock question. If the counter is being built now and the cabinet has to fit an opening, send the opening dimensions through with your enquiry so we can check the refurbished commercial counter top fridges on hand against it.