I love McCall and Koch units
Don't know why...I should be content with my domestic Whirlpool french door, but a part of me yearns for a bigger stainless beast in my kitchen.
I'm an HVAC tech by trade so I see all sorts of things of interest, too much to list. When I do foodservice calls, I don't see too many Koch or older (1940s-1970s) McCall units. As a kid, it always made my day when I saw a McCall or Koch unit in service. My grade school had a pair of Koch units. The grocery store deli in my hometown had a big McCall in all its shining glory. I know, I was a strange child. I put up power lines made of skewer sticks in my front yard and sat in front of the central AC condenser every time it kicked on.
Koch Butcher Supply of Kansas City, MO spun off a refrigeration division in the 1930s. They were acquired by Hobart in the 1960s and were dropped by the late 1970s. Through this period up until the end of Koch, Koch rebranded refrigeration units under the Hobart name.
McCall was founded in 1945 in Hudson, New York. They were acquired by Kolpak in the 1960s, and had relocated to Kolpak's manufacturing headquarters in Parsons, TN. In 1995, Manitowoc Company acquired Kolpak and McCall. A little over 12 years later (around 2008), Manitowoc quietly ended the McCall line in favor of Delfield (a brand not as well-known. Delfield units are inferior to McCall due to the fact that they use a plastic interior liner over heavy-duty aluminum). The Kolpak name remains.
I regularly run into newer (80s-90s) McCall units in the field. However, I have yet to encounter an older unit, particularly those that were produced in the 60s-70s. These otherwise resemble the newer McCall units in the overall design, only that the diffuser panel has a wood accent, something kind of peculiar for something intended for commercial or industrial use (but nice nonetheless). There's even older stuff I've never seen before, I just have pictures of them (yes, I collect all sorts of photos of all sorts of equipment!).
In reality, these are probably just about all gone as this older stuff sucks down a lot more juice over newer, more efficient units. What's more, the sealed system on these use R12, so if a compressor blows or there's a leak it's off to the scrap pile as it isn't cost-effective to properly retrofit a reach-in for R134a. Unfortunately, many proprietors forego a more stable choice (like Traulsen, True, Victory, etc) for cheaper Chinese units (such as TurboAir). It's the cheapest available unless they go out of health code compliance and buy domestic. They don't hold up as long, hence the low upfront cost over a solid American-made unit.
