Everything Is Sticky and Everything Smells
Walk into a closed bar that's been sitting for even two weeks without cleaning and the smell hits you immediately. Stale beer soaked into wood, residual liquor in drain troughs, fruit flies that have colonized every crevice. The floor behind the bar — where bartenders stand — has a permanent tackiness that no amount of mopping will fix. That epoxy or rubber matting is coming up and going in the truck.
We've cleared bars in Portland's Pearl District, dive bars in Salem, and brewpubs in Eugene. They all share one thing: years of liquid buildup in places you can't see. Under the bar top, behind the speed rail, inside the ice well drain — it's all fermenting. We wear gloves and boots, and honestly, we've learned to breathe through our mouths for the first hour until the fresh air from open doors takes over.
Bar cleanouts run $2,000 to $6,000 for a typical establishment. Breweries with production equipment push that to $8,000 to $20,000. The sticky factor doesn't change the price, but it does affect crew morale.
Draft Systems Are More Complex Than You Think
A draft beer system isn't just taps on the wall. Behind those taps: glycol-cooled trunk lines running 20 to 50 feet from the walk-in cooler, a glycol chiller unit (200 to 400 pounds), CO2 and nitrogen tanks, regulators, FOBs (foam-on-beer detectors), and keg couplers. A 20-tap system has hundreds of feet of beer line and glycol tubing bundled together in an insulated trunk.
Removing the system means disconnecting gas lines (carefully — CO2 tanks are under 800+ PSI), draining glycol (propylene glycol is generally non-toxic but needs proper disposal), pulling trunk lines through walls and ceilings, and removing the tap tower or wall-mount shanks. The glycol chiller is essentially a commercial refrigeration unit that needs refrigerant recovery before disposal.
Some draft system components have resale value. A working glycol chiller sells for $500 to $2,000. Tap handles — especially custom brewery handles — are collectible. We've pulled handles that sold for $20 to $50 each on eBay. If you have 20 custom handles, that's $400 to $1,000. We'll set them aside if you want to sell them.
Walk-In Coolers and Refrigeration
The walk-in cooler is the biggest single item in most bars and breweries. A typical bar walk-in is 8x10 or 10x12 feet — modular panels bolted together with a refrigeration unit on top or outside. Disassembling the panels is straightforward (they're designed to be modular), but the refrigeration unit requires EPA-compliant refrigerant recovery before we can move it.
Under-bar coolers, glass frosters, ice machines, and reach-in refrigerators are standard appliance removal. Each unit weighs 200 to 500 pounds and needs refrigerant recovery. A busy bar might have six to ten individual refrigeration units plus the walk-in. That's a lot of R-404A or R-134a that needs certified recovery.
Ice machines deserve a specific mention — they're always heavier than they look (300 to 600 pounds for a commercial unit), they're usually on a stand or elevated shelf, and they're connected to water lines that have been dripping behind the wall for years. Expect water damage behind every ice machine we pull out. Every. Single. One.
Bar Tops, Stools, and Fixtures
A solid wood bar top weighs 300 to 800 pounds depending on length and thickness. Some are single-piece slabs that won't fit through the door without cutting. Others are sectional. The brass foot rail, bar die (the raised edge), and speed rail underneath all need to come off separately.
Bar stools — typically 15 to 30 in a mid-size bar — weigh 20 to 40 pounds each. Commercial bar stools in good condition sell for $30 to $100 each, so there's some recovery value there. Booths and banquettes are usually custom-built and bolted to the floor. They come out in pieces.
Liquor shelving and back bar displays are often the most visually impressive part of a bar, but they're usually particleboard and mirrors with LED lighting. Resale value is near zero unless it's genuinely high-end millwork. Most of it goes to Metro South or Central transfer stations.
Brewery Production Equipment (If Applicable)
Brewpubs and small breweries add a whole production side to the cleanout. Fermentation tanks (7-barrel to 15-barrel, 500 to 2,000 pounds each), bright tanks, a brewhouse (mash tun, lauter tun, boil kettle), grain handling equipment, and glycol systems sized for production cooling. A 10-barrel brewhouse weighs 3,000 to 5,000 pounds.
Stainless steel brewing equipment has significant scrap value — stainless brings $0.50 to $0.80 per pound. A 2,000-pound fermenter is worth $1,000 to $1,600 in scrap. But working equipment is worth far more on the used brewing equipment market. A used 7-barrel fermenter sells for $2,000 to $5,000. Sell before you scrap.
Grain storage, hoses, fittings, pumps, heat exchangers, and the mountain of kegs (each worth $30 to $100 — return them to the distributor for deposit) round out the production side. Commercial cleanout services for breweries should include an equipment inventory before any removal begins. Reach out and we'll walk the space with you.
