Setting off on a path to your culinary dream is no easy feat. Aside from perfecting your cooking skills, more steps must be taken if you want to push your dream further, such as opening a restaurant. However, making a name for yourself in this industry involves various factors to bring your vision to life. Setting up a commercial kitchen must be one of your top priorities in this regard. Here’s how you can go about it:
Look Up Different Layouts
Before you get ahead of yourself and choose the best griddle for your business, know your options. If you’re unfamiliar with commercial kitchens, various design layouts play around with roughly similar elements. But different arrangements, namely assembly line, island, galley, open kitchen, and zone-style layouts.
Like production lines at factories, the assembly line layout holds consistent meal preparation above anything else. Since the exit is close to the cooking and service stations while the preparation is right next to the cooking. However, there’s only consistency because the staff makes the same dishes frequently. Hence, even though different chefs are involved with their respective tasks during meal preparation, this layout ensures a kitchen is a well-oiled machine.
middle. The cooking station serves as the kitchen’s central hub, gathering the cooking equipment and other kitchen tools for the chefs. Meanwhile, it’s surrounded by other essential parts in an organized circle, from the dishwashing station by the entrance to the service area near the exit.
Meanwhile, galley and zone-style kitchen layouts are on a different spectrum. While the galley former only has all parts of the kitchen arranged on one side, the latter utilizes every inch of the room. Although both have their unique perks, an open kitchen layout is on an entirely different level. Instead of being closed off, it exposes everything the kitchen staff’s doing for the customers’ entertainment.
Acknowledge The Workflow
Generally, restaurants are some of the busiest establishments in the hospitality industry. Aside from how packed they are at rush hour, everyone inside the kitchen is rushing around to get orders done while keeping up with other tasks. Regardless, that’s what you’d expect as part of the kitchen staff.
Despite how busy the kitchen is, everything must continue running like clockwork. Your commercial kitchen must be designed for functionality while fully equipped with standard areas. For example, dish and garbage disposals are supposed to be opposite the cooking station. Otherwise, fresh ingredients might be accidentally thrown away; worse, what’s supposed to be leftovers get included in the dish.
Invest In Quality Equipment
Everything must be considered when setting up a commercial kitchen, from storage to cooking equipment. After all, running one mostly relies on whatever the chefs use.
However, considering the many options in the market, looking for the basics might be overwhelming, and it only gets worse when finding high-quality ones. But to narrow your search, be mindful of the following categories: cooking, safety, sanitation, and storage. This way, it’ll be easier for you to stock up on your kitchen.
Consider Your Menu
Thinking of what you’ll put in your menu is the fun side of putting up a restaurant. After all, with so many dishes to choose from, you’re playing with a wide variety of flavors. But your kitchen must accommodate whatever you intend to cook, considering how every second counts in a restaurant. Based on the list of dishes you’ve made, plan where to place your kitchen equipment to maximize efficiency when preparing meals.
Adhere To Safety Codes
Since you’re serving food, conforming to the health code should be part of planning a restaurant. This can be shown by how far the cooking station is from the disposal or where the food storage is located. Failing to comply with health regulations could compromise the quality of the dishes while endangering customers, impacting the restaurant’s reputation.
Takeaway
Despite the numerous considerations you should make and the hard work required, owning a restaurant is a thrilling experience. After all, there’s nothing like showing people your culinary skills, even more so once you see them enjoying everything you’ve cooked. But running a successful restaurant is impossible without setting up a commercial kitchen. Since that’s where your chefs cook, familiarize yourself with its essential components to ensure that it suits your restaurant’s structure and needs. Also, don’t go for just any random layout—use one that allows efficient workflow.
You May Also Like,
Add These Items to Your Cooking Utensils List
Leave a Reply