A restaurant closed for renovation, and 50 boxes

The owner was refitting the space. Kitchen, furniture, crockery, machines and the ceiling lights all had to be out before the builders arrived. This is that job, photographed on site, nothing staged.

Updated September 2026

A Tủ Mây crew member scanning the barcode on a sealed box with a phone

The job in short

We started after closing, at half past nine at night, across two nights.
50 boxes plus the kitchen equipment.
Every piece washed and dried before it went in a box.
Machines stretch-wrapped, with loose parts stripped off and packed first.
Every box carries its own barcode, scanned into the catalogue on site.
When the restaurant reopens we deliver it back and set it up on request.

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Why a restaurant is harder than a house

A flat holds furniture, clothes and a box of paperwork. A restaurant holds stacked crockery, heavy pans, mains-powered stainless machines, tables that come apart and a dry store. Each group needs different handling, and all of it has to happen inside the hours the place is not trading.

Builders do not wait. The day they start is the day the space has to be empty. If things are still in there, either the build slows down or everything gets pushed into a corner under a sheet, and two months later you find out what did not survive.

Two Tủ Mây crew members working in the stainless kitchen — The kitchen takes the longest, and it is the part that suffers most if you rush it.

Night one: the kitchen

The kitchen goes first, because it is where the grease is and where the damage happens in storage. Tools were washed, racked to drain, then dried by hand. Pans and glass lids were cleaned of oil before they went anywhere near a box.

This is not about appearances. A thin film of oil left on stainless steel turns tacky and sour after eight weeks on a shelf, and the smell moves to everything sharing the box. A bowl packed damp grows mould. Storing kitchen equipment is a drying job first, and there is no shortcut through it.

A crew member washing kitchen tools and racking them to drain — Wash, drain, dry. Nothing damp goes into a box.

A crew member cleaning a pan and its glass lid before it is packed — A pan and its glass lid cleaned of oil before packing.

Machines: strip the loose parts, then wrap

The dough sheeter, the steamer cabinet and the induction tops all followed the same order. Unplug, let it cool properly, take off every loose part and wrap those separately, dry it, and only then run stretch film around the body.

Loose parts are what goes missing: blades, trays, racks, adjustment screws. They do not get thrown into a shared anonymous box. Each set travels with its own machine, because in two months nobody remembers which blade belongs to which body.

A crew member removing the blade from a dough sheeter before packing — The dough sheeter blade comes off and is wrapped separately, travelling with its own machine.

Two crew members wrapping stretch film around a stainless steamer cabinet — Stretch film goes on after the body is dry, never over oil or water.

Night two: the dining room

Table tops came off their pedestals, stacked with padding between them. Chairs stacked. The ceiling lights, both the track heads and the pendants, came down and were boxed separately.

Lighting is the thing people forget. It feels like part of the building, so they assume it stays, but the painters and ceiling crew will take it down anyway, and a light fitting that spends two months on a building site floor is not the same fitting afterwards.

Sealed boxes beside dismantled table tops and pedestals — Dismantled table tops, pedestals, and sealed boxes.

50 boxes, and why each one has a code

Our standard box is 60 × 40 × 40 cm. This job took 50 of them, plus the kitchen equipment, which travels separately because machines do not go in boxes.

Every box carries a pre-printed barcode. The crew scans it with a phone on site, photographs what went in, and that box appears in the customer account before the van leaves. There is no data-entry step afterwards, because the data-entry step afterwards is the one nobody does.

What has not happened yet: the return and the reinstall

The renovation is still running. The second half of this job is reopening day: we bring it back, put it in the right areas, refit the furniture and the lighting, and hand over against the same list that was scanned during the pack.

That list is why the second half is fast. Reopening against a photographed inventory is a different job from reopening against the memory of someone who left last month.

How it is priced

There is no separate restaurant price list. It is the one published on this site: counted in boxes, rented by the month, with a one-off collection fee. A Large plan is 48 boxes, so a 50-box job sits just above it.

Three sizes, counted in boxes
Size	Boxes	Roughly	Valet / month	Self storage / month
Small	12	a studio, seasonal things	1,250,000 VND / 1,550,000 VND	1,550,000 VND / 1,950,000 VND
Medium	24	a one-bedroom home	2,450,000 VND / 3,050,000 VND	3,050,000 VND / 3,800,000 VND
Large	48	a two to three bedroom home	4,900,000 VND / 6,150,000 VND	6,150,000 VND / 7,700,000 VND

Collection, paid once
Size	Collection only	Collection and return
Small	3,300,000 VND	5,100,000 VND
Medium	6,000,000 VND	8,900,000 VND
Large	11,300,000 VND	16,600,000 VND

Air-conditioned storage holds 23 to 25°C. For wood, electronics and stainless machines sitting through the rainy season, that difference is worth paying.

If your place is about to be refitted

Book 2 days ahead. Sooner than that carries a rush fee of 400,000 VND.
Pick the night after your last service, not the morning the builders arrive.
Tell us which items have to come back before reopening; those get stored at the front.
We collect anywhere in Districts 1 to 5, Binh Thanh, Phu Nhuan and Go Vap with no travel charge; other districts add 150,000 VND per trip.

Tủ Mây price list · standard / air-conditioned

Valet · Small · 12 boxes1,250,000 VND / 1,550,000 VND

Valet · Medium · 24 boxes2,450,000 VND / 3,050,000 VND

Valet · Large · 48 boxes4,900,000 VND / 6,150,000 VND

Self storage · Small1,550,000 VND / 1,950,000 VND

Self storage · Medium3,050,000 VND / 3,800,000 VND

Self storage · Large6,150,000 VND / 7,700,000 VND

Collection only, paid oncefrom 3,300,000 VND

Collection and return, paid oncefrom 5,100,000 VND

A delivery in between, per item100,000 VND, a box or a wardrobe alike

Frequently asked

Do you work after closing time?

Yes. This job started at half past nine at night and ran past midnight. The restaurant did not lose a trading day.

Do you take kitchen machinery?

Yes. Machines are unplugged, cooled, stripped of loose parts, dried and stretch-wrapped. The loose parts travel with their own machine.

Can we get a few items back mid-storage?

Yes. Pick them in your account and book a delivery, 100,000 VND per item. You do not have to take back the whole lot.

Will you set it back up when we reopen?

Yes, on request. We deliver back, place it by area and refit the furniture and lighting, checked against the list scanned during the pack.

What if the renovation runs long?

Storage is month to month with no fixed term. Another month of building is another month of storage, not a new contract.

Store it, get it back when you need it

We come to you, pack, photograph every item and keep it on a secure shelf, standard or air-conditioned. One message brings any of it back.

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