Ideal Restaurant Supply to close in Carle Place

Do you need a 60-quart Hobart mixer? A Blodgett BCX14 combi oven? How about a hot dog roller grill, panini press or an ice machine? These are among the items that will be on offer when Carle Place’s Ideal Restaurant Supply liquidates its remaining stock at an auction to be held on Monday.

Since the store announced its closure last month, it has been giving discounts to cash customers. The sale will reach a crescendo when Commack-based American Auctions, Liquidations, Appraisals, Inc. attempts to sell off more than 14,000 new items valued at more than $3 million. In addition to cooking equipment, the sale will also include retail fixtures such as Metro shelving racks, pallet jacks, mobile stair units, shopping carts and not one but two baby grand pianos.  

The store will open at 9 a.m. for customers to view the merchandise. The auction starts at 11 a.m. Click here for a complete list of what is being offered.

Ideal Restaurant Supply is closing Feb. 1. Owner Ruth Yeh said that she is ready to retire.  

The sprawling store, which opened in 2005, was not only patronized by restaurant chefs but also by home cooks who could stroll up and down the wide aisles of this culinary wonderland enjoying a seemingly endless selection of cheap-but-sturdy nonstick pans, colorful paring knives, Chinese shears, professional cake testers, sheet pans (full, half, quarter and even eighth!), toothpick dispensers, stock pots with built-in strainers and steamers, end-grain cutting boards and nests upon nests of mixing bowls and ramekins.

Ideal started out more than 100 years ago as a restaurant-equipment supplier on Manhattan's Bowery. In 1987, Yeh took over the business and, in 2005, moved it to Carle Place. Ideal has always been welcoming to what Yeh called the "residential customer."

"We designed the store for maximum display," she said recently. The front of the store is dominated by a "command center" where a couple of folks are always happy to help. Aisles are wide and everything is clearly labeled and priced.

Ideal Restaurant Supply is open Monday to Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at 125 Voice Rd., Carle Place, 516-482-7000, idealrsc.com