1 Door Drink Fridges

An upright refrigerated cabinet with one glass door and a lit interior, sold to display drinks and let customers take their own. Shelves are adjustable so you can set them to the product, and the door is usually self-closing so it isn't left open in a rush.

REO offers single door units at 450 litres in the AG Supermarket CSB450 and 515 litres in the AG Equipment CU800TNG, plus the Atosa P380WA and YCF9401 and the Williams Diamond HP1GWHC in white Colorbond. Capacity, shelf count and dimensions are shown on each product page.

It depends on shelf pitch more than on litres. A 450 litre cabinet loaded with two litre bottles holds far fewer units than the same cabinet loaded with 375ml cans, because the taller line eats the gap between the shelves and you lose the shelf above it.

Work it from the product back. Decide what is going in, count the facings you want across each shelf, then set the shelves to the height of the tallest thing on them. REO offers single door units at 450 litres and 515 litres, and the internal capacity of every unit is on its product page.

Yes. Shelves in an upright merchandiser are adjustable, so you lift or drop them and set the pitch to whatever is going on them. Most venues run a tall pitch at the bottom for two litre bottles and tighter pitches up the cabinet for cans and small bottles.

Don't overload a shelf. Each one has a load rating, and a shelf packed end to end with full bottles can bow, which stops the door closing square and pulls the seal away from the frame. Shelf counts and load ratings are shown on each product page.

Count what you sell in your busiest hour, not what you sell in an average day. If staff are refilling a single door cabinet twice through a lunch service, you have outgrown it, and every refill costs labour and puts a person and a crate in front of the customer.

One door works for a cafe, a takeaway, a small bar, a staff room, or a second selling point next to the register in a shop that already has a bigger cabinet on the floor. A bottle shop or a convenience store pushing volume through the door wants two.

It is the lit panel above the door, and it carries a brand, a price or a product name so the cabinet reads from across the room. The Atosa YCF9401 and the AG Equipment CU800TNG are both offered with one.

The lighting inside the cabinet is a separate thing and it matters more for selling. A lit interior shows the labels and the condensation on a cold bottle, which is most of the reason a glass door cabinet outsells a solid door one standing in the same spot.

Barely. The glass in a commercial merchandiser is always double glazed, so the difference in running cost against a solid door cabinet is marginal, and the extra sales from customers seeing the drinks outweigh it.

Siting and a clean condenser change the running cost far more than the door does. A cabinet standing in direct sun, or pushed hard against a wall with no clearance behind it, will run its compressor much longer than the same unit with air around it.

Front the stock up. Pull the cold product forward to the edge of the shelf as it sells and put the new warm stock in behind it, so the customer gets a cold drink and the back of the shelf has time to pull down. That is also correct rotation, because the oldest date sells first.

Leave the air path clear. An upright merchandiser moves air up the back and across the shelves, and cartons jammed against the vents stop it holding an even temperature, so the top shelf runs warmer than the bottom one.

The door seal and the hinge, because a merchandiser door is opened more times a day than any other fridge in the building. The gasket flattens where it takes the wear and warm air leaks in past it, and a self-closing hinge that has lost its tension leaves the door sitting a few millimetres open all afternoon. Gaskets and hinges are wear and tear components that need to be fixed or replaced periodically.

The condenser is the other one. Dust settles on the fins, the heat can't escape and the compressor runs flat out, and in a cafe the fins collect milk steam and grease along with the dust.

Warm soapy water and a soft cloth on the glass, inside and out, and a non-ammonia glass cleaner if the door carries printed or frosted panels. Wipe the door seal every week with the same soapy water, because sugar from spilled soft drink sets hard in the rubber and stops it sealing.

Brush and vacuum the condenser on a schedule with the power off. Avoid bleach and abrasive cleaners on the cabinet, since they pit steel and perish the gasket, and take the shelves out to wash them separately.

Access first. Measure the doorway, the corridor and any step or lift between the truck and the spot the cabinet is going into, because an upright unit cannot be laid on its side to get it through a tight door without risking the compressor.

Stand it upright and leave it a few hours before switching it on, so the compressor oil drains back after the trip. Then run it empty with the door shut and let it pull down, with your own thermometer inside, before you load a single case into it.

Check the unit for transit damage as soon as it arrives and tell REO within 24 hours. Not two days, not two weeks. REO offers a 24-hour replacement guarantee on transit damage, and it only applies if you tell us inside that window.

Get the wrapping off while the driver is still there if you can. The glass door, the door frame, the light box and the base rail are where the knocks land, and a chip at the edge of a glass panel is easy to miss under shrink wrap. Photograph the packaging and the damage before the cabinet is moved and send the photographs through with the order number.

Buy on best value for money, which means the longest warranty and the lowest total cost of ownership over the life of the unit, counting what it costs to run and what a repair costs when it needs one. Williams sits at the premium end and the Diamond HP1GWHC is the single door cabinet REO offers from them. Atosa and AG Equipment do the same job for less, and Thermaster and FED-X are worth asking about as well, because REO has an answer at every price point and their warranty and after-sales support are unbeatable for that money.

Silverchef Rent-Try-Buy is how plenty of venues pay for the cabinet they actually want. You rent the unit instead of buying it outright, the rental payments go through as an operating expense, your cash stays in the rest of the fit-out, and you can buy the unit out later or move up to a two door cabinet as the business grows.