Emergency fridge hire for restaurants and cafes
Your walk-in has gone down overnight and you’ve got thirty covers booked for lunch. The engineer can’t come until Monday and it’s Friday morning. You need cold storage now, not a week of lost trade and a skip full of spoiled stock.
That’s the call we take most often from restaurant owners, cafe kitchens and takeaway operators across Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. When your commercial fridge or freezer fails mid-trade, a refrigerated trailer parked outside your back door keeps you open while you wait for repairs or replacement.
Breakdown Cover
Backup when your walk-in or freezer fails.
Rapid Response
Fast delivery to keep you trading.
Chiller & Freezer
Chilled or sub-zero to match your stock.
Short or Long-Term
Cover for a day, a week or a refit.
Emergency walk-in fridge replacement
Most of our restaurant fridge hire jobs are emergency callouts. A walk-in packs in, a chest freezer trips overnight, or the condenser gives up during a heatwave. You’re looking at days of downtime, lost bookings, and the cost of restocking from scratch.
We deliver a refrigerated or freezer trailer to your site, you transfer your stock across, and you’re back in business. The trailer runs from a standard 13 amp mains socket, so if you’ve got power to your kitchen you can plug straight in. Every trailer comes with trailer GPS tracking GPS fitted as standard, and we collect it once your commercial kit is back up and running.
Peak summer is our busiest season—wedding caterers and marquee events—but we keep capacity for emergency callouts wherever we can. If we’re fully booked we’ll tell you straight away, but it’s always worth the phone call.
Event catering and overspill cold storage
The emergency work is bread and butter, but we also hire to restaurants running offsite catering, pop-up kitchens, festival concessions or one-off banquets where your usual walk-in won’t stretch.
If you’re catering a wedding breakfast for 120 and prepping two days’ worth of food in advance, a chiller trailer parked in your yard gives you the extra capacity without playing Tetris with your day-to-day stock. We’ve worked with caterers, pubs doing outside bars, and kitchens that need overflow freezer space for game season or bulk deliveries.
At a Glance
| Coverage | Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, East Anglia & Sussex |
| Trailers | Single & twin-axle, 3m-4.5m, chiller & freezer |
| Power | 13amp 240v mains or 16amp commando (generator option) |
| Delivery | Delivered, positioned & collected – no tow vehicle needed |
| Tracking | GPS tracked & temperature monitored as standard |
What size trailer do you need?
We run single-axle and twin-axle trailers. A single-axle works for most restaurant emergency jobs—enough room to move your perishable stock, proteins, dairy and prepped mise across while the engineer sorts your walk-in. Twin-axle gives you significantly more volume if you’re running a larger kitchen, holding stock for multiple sites, or doing serious event prep.
If you’re not sure, describe what you’re storing and we’ll steer you to the right size. We’ve done enough restaurant callouts to know what fits.
Chiller or freezer?
We hire both refrigerated chillers and freezer trailers. If your walk-in fridge has failed, you need a chiller. If it’s your chest freezer or a freezer room, we’ll bring a freezer trailer. Some jobs need one of each.
Let us know what’s gone down and what temperature you’re holding, and we’ll match the trailer to the job.
How to book when you're mid-emergency
Ring us on 07771 834857. If it’s an emergency, call—don’t email. We’ll ask what’s failed, where you are (we cover Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, East Anglia and Sussex), and how long you need cover.
We deliver and collect. You don’t need a tow vehicle or a car park full of space—just somewhere we can drop a trailer and access to mains power. If you’re on a high street or a tight yard, talk us through it and we’ll work out whether we can get in.
Pricing depends on trailer size, where you are, and how long you need it. We’ll quote over the phone. For emergency restaurant fridge hire we take a deposit and balance by bank transfer or card. If you’re an established business and you’d rather run it through accounts, we can set up a 30-day invoice after the first job.
Remote sites and generators
Most restaurant kitchens have mains power and that’s all you need. If you’re doing offsite catering somewhere without a socket—a marquee in a field, a pop-up at a festival—we can arrange a small generator to keep the trailer running. It’s an extra cost but it means you’re not tied to the mains.
Why restaurants and cafes use Chilled Down
We’re family-run and based near Norwich (Fundenhall, NR16 1HQ). Paul answers the phone, quotes the job, and sorts the logistics. No call centre, no autoreply holding pattern when your walk-in’s down at 6 a.m.
We’ve worked with caterers, butchers, farm shops, breweries, pubs, wedding venues and plenty of commercial kitchens who’ve had that sinking feeling when the refrigeration trips mid-service. We know what a failed walk-in costs you in lost trade, and we know you need it sorted today, not next week.
If your commercial fridge or freezer has let you down, or you’ve got an event coming up and nowhere to store the prep, give us a ring. We’ll get a trailer to you as quickly as we can, and collect it again once you’re back up and running.
Call 07771 834857 or visit chilleddown.co.uk to book emergency commercial kitchen fridge hire across East Anglia.
Need a fridge or freezer trailer? We will match the right unit to your job.
Call 07771 834857Request a quote