Whether you’re beginning a new restaurant, opening up a second restaurant, or renovating an existing establishment, an efficient restaurant kitchen design should be high on your list of priorities.
The kitchen is the heart and soul of your restaurant : the food, and the staff that create it.
Commercial kitchens with layouts that are elegant, including all of the restaurant equipment that chefs need exactly where they need them, are essential to a restaurant’s success. Plus, technology such as kitchen display systems that help kitchen workflows rather than hinder them can improve efficiency tenfold.
Of course, there are lots to think about while designing a restaurant kitchen. Let’s dive in to and examine how to start, and which restaurants are putting a fantastic spin with their progressive restaurant kitchen layouts.
Where to start when designing a commercial kitchen
There are many requirements in a restaurant kitchen, so before we dive into the factors to consider when planning a commercial kitchen project, you need to do some research.
Step 1: Engage your chef, it is absolutely imperative that your CHEF be involved in the design process. According to chef Jet Tila in an interview with The Kraemer Edge, "No input from chefs usually means several things: First, the wrong equipment for the restaurant. Second, the relationship between the kitchen and the party in front of the house is And that usually means that there is not enough space in the kitchen. Third, the flow is totally wrong.
Your chef knows your menu better than you do and knows the kind of space the kitchen team needs to want to involve designers and room teams, the most important input you can get is from the chef.
Step 2: Know your menu You can't have a kitchen without a menu, so menu development should be at the heart of your planning process. Make a list of all the meals on your menu and all the specific ingredients involved in each meal. Then write down the steps to create each menu item, including what equipment should be used and when. This information can help you decide where to place your ovens, prep stations, etc.
Step 3: Think about what you don't need Kitchens can get messy quickly. Think about how you can make every piece of kitchen equipment run twice as long. Is it possible to use a hand blender to make soup and sauce? Would it be better to use it instead of an immersion blender?Include detailed equipment measures for preparation, display, refrigeration and food storage and be ruthless when they decide what is important.
10 Factors to Consider in Your Restaurant Kitchen Floor Plan
OK, you are now ready to discuss with your designers and define your restaurant kitchen floor plan. There are many factors to consider. No two restaurant cuisines are the same, especially between different types. full service restaurant, quick service, etc. However, there are a few factors that any backyard project should consider.
Top Ten Considerations:
Flexibility & Space Efficiency
Simplicity
Kitchen Workflow
Food Sanitation & Food Safety
Supervision & Training
Energy Efficiency
Air Ventilation
Maintenance
Commercial Kitchen Equipment
Technology that restaurant point of sale in the front of house
1. Flexibility and space efficiency
Your kitchen should be as flexible as your menu. Does your restaurant offer daily specials? Do you change the map every season with the technical data of the map at your side? Having a modular kitchen with rolling equipment or workstations that can be used for multiple tasks will help you use space more efficiently.
2. Simplicity
How can you make your kitchen simple enough for a monkey to cook your meals? OK, maybe that would go against all the sanitary codes we mentioned earlier, but the idea still holds true - your kitchen shouldn't be complicated to navigate. Save space (and money) by using only the equipment you need, and think about where you place certain stations to ease the workflow from kitchen to display to cook through the executive chef.
3. Kitchen Workflow
Most kitchens are chaotic. This is the nature of a kitchen; it's the rush to be a leader. Chris Hill talks about this race on The Garnish podcast. However, the best kitchens use this chaos to their advantage. WebstaurantStore recommends that you design your kitchen with zones by function: cleaning, storage and inventory, food preparation, meal cooking and serving. In this layout, the waste disposal and cleaning area is away from the meal cooking area and finished meals leave the kitchen on one side while dirty dishes enter the kitchen on the other side.
4. Food Hygiene and Food Safety
Not having enough washing stations is one of the biggest mistakes you can make when designing a restaurant kitchen. in the kitchen should emphasize restaurant health and food safety codes. While the fun part of kitchen design may be the cooking and prep area, cleaning stations are just as important. Consider where your dirty dishes will accumulate, as well as where to put clean dishes so that they are easily accessible when preparing food
5. Supervision and training
At the back of the house, it should there is space for the executive chef to oversee (and train) line cooks, sous chefs and other employees. Hiring (and retaining) good restaurant staff is the big problem. 1 for more than 50% of restaurant owners surveyed in the 2019 Restaurant Success Report, so creating an incentive program for back of house promotion is extremely important. The kitchen design should leave room for the executive chef to oversee everything that happens.
6. Energy Efficiency
Commercial kitchens require a lot of energy. In fact, a significant percentage of your restaurant's budget could be spent on energy expenditure. Catering Equipment and Supplies recommends "strategically placing kitchen equipment so that the range hood can exhaust hot air while keeping the kitchen cooler, and placing cold rooms as far away from heat sources as possible to avoid devices from working overtime.
7. Air ventilation
In the same vein as energy efficiency, it is important to consider air ventilation. Indoor air quality odors and air circulation will be affected if there is not adequate ventilation in the kitchen. Turn on the stove fan when your chefs start cooking, not halfway through cooking, and change the range hood filter frequently. You can also plan your restaurant kitchen floor plan to include fans or air purifiers throughout the kitchen, as the back of the house can get quite hot.
8. Maintenance
The number one mistake you can make when designing a professional kitchen is not creating space for maintenance. Imagine that, three months after opening, your oven breaks down. If the repairman cannot assess the damage, why other appliances or counters are too close to the oven, you may need to buy another one. It's probably not in your budget! Plan for the worst by designing your kitchen in a modular way, so that you can move certain areas to access equipment that could damage refrigerators, cubicles, stoves, etc.
9. Commercial Kitchen Equipment
Here's a general list of all the restaurant equipment you might need, whether owned or leased, for your restaurant kitchen. Again, this depends on exactly what is on your menu.
Range
Oven
Grill
Deep-fryer
Reach-in cooler or walk-in cooler
Freezer (upright or walk-in)
Sauté pans, sauce pans, baking pans
Stock/soup pots
Baking sheets
Pizza screens, pizza paddles
Tongs, spatulas, ladles
Chef’s knives
Mixing bowls, serving bowls
Steam table
Entree, appetizer, and dessert plates
Cleaning rags, cleaning buckets
Rubber floor mats
Hand soap/sanitizer dispenser
Fire extinguisher
10. Technology
Back-of-the-house technology should also be modular, flexible and easy to use. Many restaurants operate with paper tickets, or checkers, displayed in the kitchen. However, kitchen screens can maximize accuracy and increase ticket counts. Your kitchen can serve with custom routing preferences for station preparation, ticket fulfillment and turnaround reporting, and integrations with online ordering systems.