Remaining Pieces Of Charlie Trotter's To Be Auctioned Online

By Anthony Todd in Food on Jan 29, 2013 8:00PM

Remember all the fun surrounding Charlie Trotter's last attempt at an auction? He announced he was selling off everything in the restaurant, threw a Tribune reporter out of the auction preview, threw a Sun-Times photographer out during the auction, shut the whole thing down early and generally acted like an angry man. Well, perhaps an online auction will make for a more suitable venue.

The Tribune's Mark Caro reports that Auction Consultants, an Elgin-based auction company, is setting up an online auction of the remains of the famous restaurant. It's scheduled to go up within the next week.

Auction Consultants President Scott Bowers said. “We have china, artwork, furniture, kitchen equipment. We’re still in the middle of dragging the stuff out (of the restaurant). We’re hoping we should have it up within the next week.”

It hasn't been announced yet which company will administer the auction or what the format will be.

A lot of things failed to sell at the last auction, possibly because of high reserve prices. Bowers told the Trib that he wasn't aware of any reserve prices in this upcoming auction, but since Caro wasn't able to get a comment from Chef Trotter himself, we'll have to wait and see what's what. If you're into fancy furniture (well, fancy used furniture) this may be a great opportunity to get some discounts - we know that none of the "Viennese Secessionist ebony-framed, Josef Hoffmann-upholstered chairs" sold last time, nor did the restaurant's equipment.