What are the best pieces of restaurant equipment to buy used?

Building and outfitting a new restaurant kitchen with equipment is not an easy — or cheap — task. There’s a lot to consider; everything from the layout of your floorplan to the height of your walk-in cooler shelves can affect the functionality of your space, so it’s important to get everything right. But no kitchen is successful without reliable equipment within it, and no restaurant can function if there’s no money left for other expenses. 

If you’re in the process of building a new restaurant kitchen or upgrading a few pieces of equipment, you’re probably looking for a few ways to save some money. West Michigan Food Equipment is here to help; keep reading to hear our picks for the best pieces of equipment to buy used for your restaurant or commercial kitchen.

First, some rules

Before we get into the meat and potatoes of this topic, we’ve got to set some ground rules.

• It doesn’t always make sense to buy used restaurant equipment.

When it comes to safety, spend the money and make sure you’re getting reliable equipment to keep your staff (and your investment) safe. Equipment like fire suppression systems, fire extinguishers, and other safety measures are worth buying new to ensure they work correctly.

• Newer doesn’t always mean better.

Just like buying a car, defaulting to the newest and shiniest model may not always be the right move. More often than not, an older used piece of equipment will be just as (if not more) reliable, easier and cheaper to service, and will likely carry a much lower sticker price compared to a new unit.

• Your needs are unique. So should be your equipment choices.

Our picks won’t apply to every kitchen! If you have unique needs or limitations in your kitchen, some of our picks might not work for you. For example: the gas/electric debate. Electric equipment typically carries higher upfront costs and is costlier to repair, so we often recommend going with gas. But if you’re aiming for a low operating cost (or you don’t have access to gas hookups), electric equipment is the way to go. It all depends on where your priorities lie and which limitations you’re facing in your kitchen space.

The best pieces of equipment to buy used

Now that we’ve set our rules, what are our picks for the best pieces of equipment to buy used?

Ovens

Ovens are a great choice to buy used for many reasons. They’re required in almost every restaurant kitchen, they’re built to last, they’re easy to repair (especially if they’re gas-powered), and you can save tens of thousands of dollars on a used oven compared to a new one. A current example on our eBay store, this refurbished Blodgett 1048 Double Deck Pizza Oven, is available for over $20,000 less than an identical new one from an online retailer. Those are huge savings that might allow you to splurge in other areas of your restaurant build.

A Blodgett 1048 Double Deck Pizza Oven, available for over $20,000 less than an identical oven in new condition.

Plus, if you have your eye on a specific oven that isn’t in production anymore, buying a used model may be the only way to get your hands on it. The used restaurant equipment market offers the chance to find unique or older models that fit your kitchen’s specific needs or style.

Fryers

Like ovens, fryers have a long lifespan that make them an ideal item to purchase used. Well-maintained fryers can easily last ten years or more, so if you can find one that’s only a few years old, you can save a pretty penny buying used and still end up with a fryer that will last years to come. 

A Royal Range RFT-25 25lb Gas Fryer available for thousands of dollars less than a new unit would cost.

Because fryers need to be cleaned often anyways, it’s not difficult to find used fryers that are still in great shape. Our currently-available Royal Range RFT-25 25lb Gas Fryer is one example; although it’s a piece of used restaurant equipment, it’s clean, well-maintained, and ready to tackle whatever job you throw at it. Plus, it’s available for a fraction of the price a new unit would cost.

Mixers

If there’s one piece of used restaurant equipment we’d recommend over anything else, it’d be a mixer, especially one from Hobart. Mixers are the backbone of every successful bakery, pizzeria, patisserie, or really any other kitchen that works with dough. They are indispensable for making sure that your kitchen is prepared to whip up hundreds of pounds of dough for any number of applications. For those reasons, it’s vital that the mixer you choose is basically indestructible.

A Hobart L800, one of Hobart’s high-end floor mixers. The L800 makes a great buy when found in used condition.

So why Hobart? Well, if you’re in need of a mixer for your commercial kitchen or restaurant, chances are you’ve come across a few models from Hobart. They’re the gold standard — the Lexus of commercial mixers — because they’re workhorses, are inexpensively serviced, and can easily last several decades. We’ve seen, serviced and sold Hobart mixers that are 30 to 40 years old, and with a little love and some elbow grease, they work just as well as they did when they rolled off the assembly line.

Used Hobart mixers also command much lower prices than newer units and have all the hallmarks of used restaurant equipment we’ve already covered (less expensive repairs, higher reliability, built to last, etc). Plus, with supply chain shortages affecting equipment production across the globe, it can be difficult to find new mixers at any price point. Buying used may be the only option sometimes, but it’s still one that we wholeheartedly recommend where Hobart mixers are concerned.

In Conclusion

This list is not exhaustive! While these are our top three picks for the best pieces of used restaurant equipment to purchase for a commercial kitchen, that doesn’t mean they’re the only pieces you should be looking at. Prep surfaces, refrigerators, coolers, and many more pieces of used restaurant equipment can all be great buys when found used.

At the end of the day, determining which equipment to buy used and which to buy new is up to your personal preference and the needs of your kitchen. We hope this blog has helped you make the choice a little easier, and we hope you’ll consider us for your new and used restaurant equipment needs.

For more information, and to see what pieces of new and used restaurant equipment we have available, visit www.wmfoodequip.com. We’d be happy to help find you a great deal.