From Wilko
to wow.
A stripped-out unit in the heart of Bridgend. A full refrigeration package. The area’s first beer cave. And an opening day that wasn’t going to move.
The brief
Nolton House, Nolton Street — the old Wilko unit, fully stripped back to a shell. The job: turn it into Aria’s Hub, a modern convenience store, with the complete commercial refrigeration package supplied, delivered and installed by Craven Cooling.
The opening day was scheduled. The deadline was fixed. And the refrigeration programme ran alongside the principal contractor and every other trade on site — everything worked backwards from that date.
The challenge
Town-centre sites don’t forgive sloppy logistics. Every delivery, every cabinet, every hour of work happened in the middle of a busy shopping street.
A fixed opening day
The whole fit-out ran to one immovable date. Refrigeration is the backbone of a convenience store — it could not be the late trade.
Heart of the town centre
Pedestrians, parked cars, neighbouring traders. Access, health and safety and deliveries all needed planning around real life.
Big kit, tight streets
Multideck cabinets measure 3.75 metres each. Getting them off a lorry and through a shopfront in a live high street takes choreography.
The beer cave.
A walk-in cold room for beer, cider and wine — designed and positioned to be seen from the door. Nobody else around here had one. That’s the point.
It’s a destination inside the store: a reason to choose Aria’s Hub over the shop down the road, and a talking point that does its own marketing. Craven Cooling built it, chilled it, and put it where it sells.
The solution
Deliveries landed early morning — before the town woke up — so cabinets came off the lorry and straight onto the floor with minimal disruption and maximum installing time.
The refrigeration layout was designed to do a job, not just fill walls: maximise product visibility, steer customer flow, and put the highest-margin chilled lines where eyes land. Before a single external unit was fixed, we flew drone surveys over the building to confirm airflow, access and service clearances for the outdoor condensing units — measure twice, lift once. Behind the cabinets, our engineers ran the remote refrigeration pipework, commissioned the J&E Hall condensing units, and tested every cabinet to specification before opening day.
Craven Cooling supplied, installed and commissioned the entire refrigeration package — and the store opened on the day it said it would.Aria’s Hub · Nolton House, Bridgend CF31 1BX
Planning a store transformation?
Supply, delivery, installation and layout design — one team, one plan, one deadline kept. Showroom in Swansea; installations UK-wide.