OXO’s Restaurant’s furniture, office supplies, kitchen equipment and other assets were auctioned off today, going for about as much as you might pay for a used car or a new leather sofa. A lawyer representing Allan Cadgene, the downtown developer who owns the building on Water Street and was OXO’s landlord, opened the bidding at $1000. Coran Capshaw’s restaurant group manager, Micheal Keaveny, bid $2,000, then Cadgene’s lawyer bid $3,000. Going once, going twice (Hot Cake’s Keith Rosenfeld was there, as was Henry Hackett from Henry’s Restaurant, and Tyler Teass from l’�toile, but they remained silent)�€�sold to Cadgene for $3,000!

The list included thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment�€“ four gas stoves, refrigerators, an espresso machine, two computers, cash registers, cooking equipment, stereos, and nearly 140 pieces of furniture, to name just a few of the items.

In fact, we were tempted to bid ourselves. But according to Hackett, we would have lost.

“I’ve seen this before,” he said after the auction. “There was no use bidding.”

Indeed, as we’ve previously reported, the public auction was a way for OXO’s owners, Alice Kim and John Haywood, to deal with their outstanding debt. According to Hackett, Cadgene’s lawyer was ready to up the bid after any others to make sure the equipment stayed in his building. Although the price sounds cheap, Hackett says it would be too problematic and expensive to haul the stuff out of there�€“ and used restaurant equipment “only brings about 10 cents on the dollar.”

Since Cadgene owns the building and most likely plans to sell the restaurant as a turn-key operation, he could afford to bid higher than the others. Basically, Cadgene got a ready-to-go restaurant for $3,000, which he can likely turn around and sell for many times that. One imagines that this will take care of any money Kim and Haywood might owe.

“Everybody thinks you get rich in the restaurant business, but you don’t,” says Hot Cake’s Rosenfeld, who was there hoping to score some catering equipment. ” It’s often more a labor of love and a way to have a job that let’s you stay in Charlottesville.”

However, according to 33-year Charlottesville resident Rosenfeld, its become a tougher playing field.

“We used to have very few good restaurants,” he says. “… but now we have many, plus tons of chains. In my opinion, Charlottesville has been over-restauranted for some time and I’m afraid we may see more of these auctions before the economy turns around.”

Cadgene’s lawyer, Michael Derdeyn, said he was unable to discuss his client’s plan for OXO, but promised to pass along our inquiry. In the meantime, it’s safe to say the restaurant space on Water Street, complete with any necessary equipment, will soon be up for sale.

Word on the street is that Capshaw is interested, which might explain Keaveny’s bid. He could have obviously outbid Cadgene’s lawyer, but then Capshaw would have had to remove all the equipment before working out a sale/lease agreement with Cadgene. The single bid, we imagined, was a little good-natured ribbing between the two businessmen. After all, even the wealthy music mogul wouldn’t want to see Cadgene getting too good a deal.

But that’s just a fiction, according to Keaveny.

“I was actually bidding for Hank, my repair man who showed up late,” he claims. ” He buys equipment, repairs it and resells it for profit. He gives me very good deals for used equipment.”

Updated: 7/03/08