Closing a Pub or Restaurant: The Clearance Checklist
In This Article
Start With the Lease
Before anything is unbolted, read the dilapidations schedule. It is the document that determines what “cleared” actually means for your premises, and it varies enormously.
Some leases require the premises returned to shell. Others require tenant improvements removed but landlord fixtures left. Some explicitly require the extraction system to stay. Stripping out something the lease said to leave is an expensive mistake, and so is leaving something it said to remove.
Price the clearance against the schedule, line by line. Any contractor worth using will work from it rather than guessing, and it removes the argument at handback inspection.
Refrigeration and the F-Gas Trap
This is the item that most often derails a hospitality clearance, because it cannot be done by a general clearance crew.
Commercial refrigeration — walk-in cold rooms, cellar cooling, prep fridges, ice machines — contains fluorinated greenhouse gases. Under the F-Gas Regulations these must be recovered by a qualified, certified engineer before the unit is scrapped. Venting them to atmosphere is a criminal offence, not a paperwork slip.
Practically this means booking an F-Gas engineer before the clearance crew, getting the recovery certificate, and only then letting the units go for WEEE and metal recycling. Build it into the programme early; finding out on the last day is how handback dates get missed.
Kegs, Gas Cylinders and Chemicals
Three things in a cellar that are not yours to scrap:
- Kegs and casks remain brewery property. They need returning, not disposing of — and breweries do charge for unreturned containers.
- CO₂ and mixed-gas cylinders belong to the gas supplier and go back to them. Never put a pressurised cylinder in a skip; it is a genuine explosion risk at the transfer station.
- Line-cleaning chemicals are hazardous waste with their own disposal route and consignment paperwork.
Set all three aside at the start and arrange the returns in parallel with the clearance. They are the items most likely to still be sitting there on handback day.
The Kitchen and Extraction
Commercial kitchen equipment is heavy, often hard-plumbed and hard-wired, and frequently installed before the walls were finished — which means it does not always come out the way it went in.
Ranges, fryers and combi ovens need isolating properly: gas by a Gas Safe engineer on commercial catering tickets, electrics by an electrician. Extraction canopies and ductwork are the awkward part — heavy, greasy, usually at height, and often running through a ceiling void into a shared riser.
Grease-laden ductwork is also a fire risk during removal. It needs dropping in controlled sections, not cut free and allowed to fall.
Bar Servery and Fixed Seating
The parts of a pub that make it a pub are almost always built in situ. A bar servery is carpentry assembled on site around the cellar lines and glass wash. Banquette seating is bolted through the floor. Neither is furniture you can carry out.
Expect this to be dismantling work rather than removal work, and expect it to be the slowest part of the job. It is also where floor and wall damage happens, so agree in advance what standard the floor is being left to — the dilapidations schedule usually says.
Why Out-of-Hours Usually Wins
If the venue is still trading, or sits under flats, or is in a city centre with daytime loading restrictions, overnight working is normally the only realistic option.
It suits the contractor too — empty premises, free loading access, no customers — so it should not attract a premium. If someone is quoting a large uplift for night work, ask why.
Check the noise conditions on the property first. City-centre premises in Glasgow and Edinburgh often have restrictions on overnight noise, and a complaint mid-job is disruptive.
The Paperwork You Need
By the end you should hold: Waste Transfer Notes for every load, F-Gas recovery certificates for any refrigeration, hazardous waste consignment notes for chemicals, gas isolation certificates, and photographs of the premises at handback.
If an insolvency practitioner is involved, they will want the asset separation documented as well — what was sold, what was scrapped, and what realised value. Agree that before the crew starts, not after.
What It Costs
- £450–£850 — small café or takeaway: counter, small kitchen, seating, signage
- £900–£1,800 — restaurant strip-out with commercial kitchen and extraction
- £1,200–£2,500 — pub or bar including servery, cellar equipment and fixed seating
- £2,500+ — multi-floor venues, hotels and function suites, priced on survey
F-Gas recovery is quoted separately because it needs a certified engineer. Anything above a small café is worth a site visit rather than a photo quote — there is too much behind the walls to price honestly from pictures.
We cover Glasgow, Edinburgh, Ayr, Stirling and beyond — see pub and restaurant clearance.
Related: office clearance, retail shop clearance and strip-out waste removal.