Commercial Kitchen and Restaurant Movers in Jeddah
Stainless benching, cold rooms, extraction and a floor that has to stay food-safe. Wathab moves restaurant and commercial kitchen equipment in Jeddah with the disconnection sequence agreed first, the heavy items planned, and the gas and electrical work left to licensed trades.
Nothing moves until it is safely disconnected
The one sequence that cannot be reordered.
A commercial kitchen is the one commercial space where a moving crew genuinely cannot just start. Almost every major item is connected to something: gas, three-phase power, water, drainage, or an extraction canopy. Disconnecting any of them is licensed work, and doing it informally is both unsafe and, in a rented unit, usually a breach of the lease.
So the kitchen move begins with a disconnection schedule rather than with packing. Your gas contractor, your electrician and your refrigeration engineer each get a slot, in an order that leaves the kitchen safe at the end of every day. We work to that schedule; we do not set it, and we do not substitute for it.
What we do own is everything after the isolation: lifting, protection, transport, placement and the mechanical reassembly of benching and shelving. That division is stated on the quotation so nobody arrives expecting the other party to have done their half.
The disconnection and reconnection schedule
Who does what, in what order.
| Stage | Who | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Gas isolation and appliance disconnection | Your licensed gas contractor | Must precede any movement of cooking equipment |
| Electrical isolation, three-phase included | Your licensed electrician | Cables labelled at both ends before removal |
| Refrigeration decommissioning | Your refrigeration engineer | Cold rooms and remote condensers are their work, not ours |
| Water and drainage disconnection | Plumber | Sinks, dishwashers, ice machines |
| Extraction canopy removal | Specialist contractor | Usually the single heaviest item in the kitchen |
| Lifting, transport, placement | Wathab | Begins only once the above are signed off |
| Benching and shelving reassembly | Wathab | Mechanical only |
| Reconnection at the new unit | Your licensed trades | Scheduled after placement, not during |
We will coordinate dates with your contractors if you ask us to, but the contracts stay yours and the certificates stay in your file.
Stainless steel is softer than it looks
Why protection matters more here than in a shop.
Commercial kitchen equipment looks indestructible and is not. Stainless benching dents on a corner impact, scratches visibly and permanently, and is almost impossible to make good once creased. Worse, a dented bench edge or a scratched surface is a food-safety problem as well as a cosmetic one, because damaged surfaces are harder to clean properly.
Edges and corners protected first
Every bench, table and cabinet gets corner protection before it leaves its position. A single corner knock is what turns a reusable bench into a replaced one.
Surfaces faced, not stacked
Stainless tops are never stacked face to face without protection between them. Grit between two stainless surfaces in a moving vehicle is an abrasive.
Shelving bundled by run
Wire and solid shelving comes down by run with its own brackets and uprights, numbered to the wall position it came from.
Doors and drawers restrained
Cabinet doors and drawer banks are taped closed or removed, because a swinging stainless door in transit damages whatever it meets.
Castors checked before rolling
Equipment on castors is rolled only where the floor allows. Where the castors are seized or the floor is uneven, it is lifted instead.
Cold rooms, canopies and the heavy items
The three that need their own plan.
Three items in a typical Jeddah commercial kitchen routinely exceed what a general crew should attempt without planning: the walk-in cold room, the extraction canopy, and whichever single cooking suite the kitchen was built around.
Cold rooms are panel systems. Where the panels are being reused, they come apart in their original sequence and the sequence is recorded, because a cold room reassembled out of order does not seal. Where they are not being reused, they are stripped for disposal and nothing is kept.
Extraction canopies are heavy, long and awkward, and they are usually suspended. Removal is specialist work and we plan our lifting around that contractor rather than ahead of them. The cooking suite — range, fryer bank, griddle — is usually the heaviest single floor-standing item and frequently cannot pass the door it came through once a kitchen has been partitioned around it. That is a survey question, not a moving-day discovery.
- Tell us at survey whether the cold room is being reused or stripped. The method is completely different.
- Confirm who is removing the canopy and when, so our lifting slot does not collide with theirs.
- Measure the cooking suite against the current door, not the door shown on the original plan.
- Say whether the new unit’s floor is laid, because heavy equipment should not be positioned onto an unfinished floor.
Restaurant front of house
The easier half, done in the same visit.
The dining room is a straightforward move by comparison, and it is usually scheduled around the kitchen rather than the other way round. Tables, chairs, banquettes, bar fittings, display fridges and signage all travel as a conventional commercial load.
The two things worth planning are banquette seating, which is often built in place and has to be dismantled panel by panel, and the bar, which is usually plumbed and therefore follows the same licensed-trade sequence as the kitchen. Loose items — crockery, glassware, cutlery, linen — are boxed and numbered like any sealed stock series, because they are countable and worth counting.
| Item | Travels as | Reinstated by us |
|---|---|---|
| Tables and chairs | Stacked and protected | Yes, to your floor plan |
| Banquette seating | Dismantled panels, labelled | Yes, where the new wall allows |
| Bar counter | Dismantled; plumbing by your trades | Mechanical rebuild only |
| Display fridges | Drained, upright | Positioned; connection by your engineer |
| Crockery and glassware | Boxed in a numbered series | Delivered sealed; unpacking on request |
| Signage and menu boards | Removed and boxed | Mounting on request |
Anything requiring gas, water, drainage or electrical connection is reinstated by your licensed trades, not by our crew.
Commercial kitchen moving prices in Jeddah
Official Wathab pricing, in Saudi riyals.
| Scope | Price (SAR) |
|---|---|
| Dabab run — one or two appliances | 80 – 250 |
| Single-room kitchen or small coffee shop | 350 – 600 |
| Small restaurant, two-room equivalent | 500 – 900 |
| Mid-size restaurant, three-room equivalent | 800 – 1,400 |
| Large restaurant, four to five room equivalent | 1,200 – 1,900 |
| Restaurant with full production kitchen | 1,500 – 2,500 |
| Central kitchen or multi-floor venue | 2,500 – 4,000 |
Dismantling and mechanical reassembly is quoted separately: 150 – 300 SAR for a bedroom-sized unit, 100 – 250 SAR for a sliding or flat-pack wardrobe, 200 – 400 SAR for an aluminium kitchen and 400 – 900 SAR for a full apartment package. Storage for equipment between leases is 150 – 300 SAR a month for one to two rooms, 250 – 450 SAR for an apartment-sized load and 400 – 800 SAR for a villa-sized load.
Licensed trade work — gas, electrical, refrigeration, extraction — is not included in these prices and is contracted by you directly. That is stated plainly on the quotation so there is no assumption either way. The survey is free and the moving price is written before work begins.
Timing a restaurant move
Closure, overlap and the licence question.
Restaurants usually have a harder closure problem than shops, because a kitchen cannot be half moved: it either serves or it does not. The two workable patterns are a clean closure, where the old unit stops serving and everything moves in one planned block, and an overlap, where a new unit is fitted out with new equipment while the old one keeps trading and only selected items transfer at the end.
The overlap is far less disruptive and far more expensive, because you are buying equipment twice over. It makes sense when the old lease still has time to run or when the brand cannot afford a dark period. A clean closure makes sense when the leases abut. We will schedule either, but the decision is commercial and it is worth making before the survey rather than during it.
If the new unit’s fit-out slips — which in kitchens it frequently does — equipment can be held in storage rather than sitting in a building site. Stainless equipment stored on a finished floor in a dry unit keeps far better than the same equipment stacked in a half-built kitchen.
What we need before quoting
Six answers that make the price firm.
- An equipment list, marking which items are being reused and which are being disposed of.
- Whether there is a walk-in cold room, and whether its panels are being reused.
- Who your gas, electrical and refrigeration contractors are, and whether they are booked.
- Door, corridor and stairwell widths against the largest single item, measured now rather than from the plan.
- Floor levels at both ends and whether a goods lift is available.
- Your closure pattern: clean closure or overlap, and the dates.
With those answers the quotation separates what we do from what your licensed trades do, with a date for each. Related services: kitchen dismantling and assembly, appliance moving, loading and unloading crews and corporate relocation.
Moving a restaurant or commercial kitchen in Jeddah?
Send us the equipment list and your closure dates. We will survey free of charge and quote the moving work separately from the licensed trade work, in writing.
Commercial kitchen moving in Jeddah — frequently asked questions
What restaurant owners and operators in Jeddah ask us before booking.
No, and nobody moving your kitchen should. Gas, three-phase electrical, refrigeration and extraction work is licensed trade work, contracted by you. We start once isolation is signed off, and we handle lifting, protection, transport, placement and mechanical reassembly.
Yes, where it is being reused. Panels come apart in their original sequence and the sequence is recorded, because a cold room reassembled out of order will not seal. Decommissioning and recommissioning of the refrigeration itself is your engineer’s work.
Corner protection before anything leaves its position, no face-to-face stacking without a protective layer between surfaces, and doors and drawers taped or removed. Stainless dents and scratches permanently, and damaged surfaces are a cleaning problem as well as a cosmetic one.
That is a survey question, and we measure the largest item against the door as it is today rather than as the original plan shows it. Kitchens are frequently partitioned around their main suite after installation. Where it genuinely will not pass, we plan a hoist or a dismantling route in advance.
Our standard scale applies: 350 – 600 SAR for a single-room kitchen or coffee shop, 500 – 900 SAR for a small restaurant, 800 – 1,400 SAR mid-size, 1,200 – 1,900 SAR large and 2,500 – 4,000 SAR for a central kitchen. Licensed trade work is contracted separately by you.
A clean closure is cheaper and works when the leases abut. An overlap — fitting out the new unit with new equipment while the old one trades — is far less disruptive but means buying equipment twice. It is a commercial decision worth making before the survey.
Yes, and it is usually the better option. Storage is 150 – 300 SAR a month for a one to two room load, 250 – 450 SAR for an apartment-sized load and 400 – 800 SAR for a villa-sized load. Stainless keeps far better in a dry unit than stacked in a half-built kitchen.
Yes, in the same visit. Tables, chairs, display fridges and signage travel as a conventional commercial load; banquettes are dismantled panel by panel; crockery and glassware are boxed in a numbered series. Bar plumbing follows the same licensed-trade sequence as the kitchen.