Know your menu and the rules before you create a commercial kitchen. Next, decide the equipment, setup, and guiding principles—like flexibility—to use. A Commercial Kitchen Consultant could be useful to hire.
Perhaps you’re about to establish a brand-new facility and are staring at an empty area. Maybe you have plans to remodel an existing kitchen. In either case, designing a kitchen that will maximize your food service business might be daunting, and you might not even know where to begin.
Let’s start with the fundamentals
Even though no two commercial kitchens are precisely the same, there are a few essential procedures that everyone should take to arrive at the ideal design. Although they might not be as interesting as planning where to put equipment and counters, these must nonetheless be done. You’ll probably have to come back and make time-consuming and expensive improvements if you do that.
Recognize the menu:
You’re getting ahead of yourself if you’re thinking about designs without having decided on your menu or, at the absolute least, the food you’ll be offering.
The first step in determining your kitchen demands understanding your menu. There isn’t a universal kitchen design that would be suitable for all food service businesses. Sure, there are some essentials of commercial kitchen design that you’ll almost certainly include no matter what, such as prep tables and washing stations, but the tools you use and how you organize them will be greatly influenced by the cuisine you want to serve.
Inspired by the menu:
If you start thinking about designs before deciding on your menu or, at the very least, the food you’ll be serving, you’re getting ahead of yourself.
Understanding your menu is the first step in understanding the requirements for your kitchen. There isn’t a single kitchen layout that would work for all food service establishments. Certain elements of a commercial kitchen design, like prep tables and washing stations, are unavoidable inclusions. However, the type of food you want to serve will have a significant impact on the tools you use and how you arrange them.
If you haven’t already, now is an excellent moment to start incorporating your kitchen consultant. He or she will have a solid understanding of what setup and tools are ideal for the menu. They must have a say in the design of the kitchen because they’ll be the ones using it every day.
Recognize the area:
Calculate it. Know exactly what you’re up against. It will be simpler in the long run if you take these measurements before you start creating.
Remember: It’s not just about square footage. Knowing the locations of windows, doors, and electrical outlets is also crucial, particularly when designing the workflow in your kitchen.
Recognize the laws and regulations in your area:
You might create the greatest commercial kitchen in the whole world, completely tailored to meet your requirements. But if you didn’t take into account your local norms and laws, it would all be for nothing.
Strict guidelines for food storage, safety, preparation, and disposal are imposed by the following agencies:
- The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
- Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
- The Department of Public Health in your state
Even if you’ve created commercial kitchens abroad, it’s crucial to educate yourself with local, state, and even city codes before beginning your design.
Ergonomically sound set-up:
Designing a kitchen with ergonomics in mind entails setting it up such that employees are at ease while working and require the least amount of movement to execute duties.
Equipment and supplies are placed nearby in kitchens with ergonomic configurations, eliminating the need for workers to reach, stoop, or leave their stations to collect what they need.
While minimizing mobility improves productivity and lowers accidents, the physical wellness of team members is also a key benefit of such designs. The principles of sanitization, which we’ll cover in the following point, are frequently at odds with this kind of design.
Sanitation:
Sanitation is essential for the health and safety of your food service company. While a dedicated and skilled crew is primarily responsible for this task, there are methods to design your kitchen with sanitary requirements in mind that will make cleaning much simpler over time.
