Antique walk in cooler, hope to convert this year into dry aging chamber (center piece for business)
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My wife and I bought this old wooden walk in cooler from a shop that closed in the mid 80’s around the corner from our new shop we built out this past year. It took my brother and I as well as a few big bodies 2 days to disassemble this beauty. It’s mostly oak with Douglas fir framing. Each one of these panels weighs a ton, we had to resort to some creative techniques to get this thing down without killings ourselves in the process. I have seen a number of these around old shops and buildings in Buffalo. I can’t imagine the crew that used to put these things up on a daily basis.
We plan to put this up in the “bar” area of our building. We bought our building in July of 2019 to create a new shop that was built to our needs and aesthetic. The retail butcher side was a complete new build in a part of the structure that was used for a prep room by the previous owners. The walk in cooler will go up in what was a bar and dining area. We want it to be the centerpiece of the room and store dry age meats. We will have to retro fit the interior to dry age specs otherwise we want to highlight the old patina of this beauty. We hope for it to be a 6-9 month project based on finances and because we have to build it where our current customer bathroom is. Thus, we have to build a new bathroom and do some electrical and plumbing reconfiguration.
Above is the pic of the cooler before we took it down. I’ll send some more pics of where it going to go in the next few days.
Check us out on Instagram at Moriarty Meats!
Also, if anyone has any tips for installing this beast let me know.
Thanks,
Tom
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Chef Canning Dry Cured Sausage Primo Grills Team Blue Sous Vide Power User Cast Ironreplied to LeafLard333 on last edited by
LeafLard333 That is absolutely beautiful. A work of art. thanks for sharing.
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processhead Power User Regular Contributors Smoker Build Expert Bowl Choppers Nebraska Veteran Team Camo
That’s a nice one. It will look great once it is restored.
We bought an old commercial building years ago that had a walk in cooler almost identical to that one. I dreamed of doing what you are planning to do, but it was too far gone from moisture damage and I ended up demo-ing it and hauling it off. -
That’s a wonderful piece you have there! Best of luck with your repurposing and business!
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Mcjagger Texas (TX) Team Blue PK100 Sous Vide Dry Cured Sausage Canning Masterbuilt Veteran Regular Contributors Cast Iron Yearling
Wow !!! That is a nice piece of history you have !! Good luck with the restoration and post some pictures with the updates.
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LeafLard333 That thing is freaking amazing looking! Good find and as far as aesthetic adding, yeah, I’d say that’ll do!
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Cant wait to see the final pictures of this in operation. So Cool, I love that old school wood work.
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with it being close to the bar area it also could be used for a wine cellar
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YooperDog Team Orange Masterbuilt Big Green Egg Dry Cured Sausage Sous Vide Canning Power Userreplied to craigrice on last edited by
craigrice I like the way your thinking.
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LeafLard333 That is awesome ! I will be following this thread. Good luck.
