On Thursday 20th March we had a major overhaul carried out on the frying range, which has resulted in the range being better than new!
The range is a Frank Ford Concorde model, and was originally fitted in 1977 when Colin & Lenore owned the shop. The engineers at GPS Range Services are ex-Frank Ford service engineers, so they knew the range well, which certainly helped!
I have used the CCTV camera to make a speeded-up video of the work, the quality is not great, but I doubt anyone would want to sit through the 5 and a half hours the work actually took!
The engineers stripped down the range to the base components, replaced two of the frying pans, and one of the thermostats, as well as fitting safety cut-off thermostats to all of the pans.
The work was estimated to take three hours, and was planned to start at 7am, but I knew that the age of the range would likely cause some delays, so I arrived at 5am to start cleaning up, the engineers arrived at 6am, and we were still around half an hour late for opening!
We plan to make further enhancements too: the range is planned to be rewired, and while doing this we will be getting halogen lights fitted to the top-boxes, which will provide light and heat to keep the food warm. Once this is complete, the range will be as up-to-date as it can be!