But efficiency is the vital benefit for refrigeration at new coffee shop and pantry
Andrew Rigby believes that any garden centre without catering is going to struggle. He and his brother David recently built a new coffee shop, called Rigby’s, at their Pimbo Garden Centre in Upholland near Wigan. The bespoke building, which replaced two greenhouses, also houses an upmarket farm shop called The Pantry. “Catering is the fastest growing part of our sector,” he says. “We’ve invested heavily, but it’s the way to go. Now even on poor days we have customers on site. We have some clientele who come for the coffee shop, with no intention of looking at the plants.”
A major part of the investment was in the kitchen. “We try to source our foods locally, we cook from fresh so we need dependable refrigerated storage.” To keep their ingredients in top condition the Rigby’s installed a range of True cabinets and counters. They’ve been so impressed with them that they have now invested in True display cabinets for The Pantry.
“Actually these weren’t our first True fridges,” says Andrew Rigby. “We got a True Coca Cola cabinet nine years ago. We’ve never even had to have anyone out to look at it. That’s reliability.”
The coffee shop serves a wide range of foods, including breakfasts, light lunches, paninis, sandwiches and children’s meals. Weekends are their busiest times, with Sunday breakfast and Sunday roast lunch being very popular. Inside there are 79 covers with additional seating outside.
“When we looked at refrigeration we knew what we wanted. The True brand is top end but the extended guarantees that come with the cabinets make it viable to spend the extra.”
Is sustainability and energy saving a factor for the Rigby’s? “It is, but there’s more to it than that. The Garden Centre is in a village and the local power supply is unpredictable. Wherever possible we bought gas-powered equipment for the kitchen. Anything electric has to be as efficient as possible. True ticks that box, and their cabinets are very well built, with good insulation, which will obviously be a big benefit if we have power issues.
“In the kitchen we have an upright double door fridge, the same size freezer and a sandwich prep counter. They all look great, which was another reason for us to buy True units for The Pantry. The ones in there are uprights and have a black finish which looks excellent. They were a special order but we were willing to wait to get the right finish. They also have adjustable shelving, which is ideal for us.”
The True T49 fridge and T49 freezer in Rigby’s kitchen are double door units with capacities of 1388 litres (49 cubic feet). The counter is a TSSU sandwich and salad prep unit, which has ingredients wells with a hinged lid on top. The two display units in The Pantry are a GDM19T, a 538 litre single glass door cooler, and a GDM49F, a 1388 litre double glass door freezer. All units feature heavy duty refrigerated systems with fast pull down times, a three year parts warranty and a five year warranty on compressors.
The True cabinets were supplied and installed by Fiswal Catering Equipment of St Helens. “We like True cabinets because of the quality build and reliability,” says Andrew Robinson of Fiswal. “The extended warranty is a big bonus for customers. True also offers great after sales care.”
The complete True Refrigeration range is available through dealers across the UK and Ireland. For more information visit www.truemfg.com/uk or call True UK on +44 (0) 1709 888888.
Links/contacts:
Pimbo Garden Centre: www.pimbogardencentre.co.uk
Fiswal Business and Catering Equipment Ltd: 01942 713377
True Refrigeration: www.truemfg.com/uk