2017 Kitchen Makeovers
Modern Equipment & Improvement Layouts
Today's back of the house restaurant and institutional kitchens take on their own identities. Patisserie Sweets and Foods would be a great example to think about for this article. Smarter, faster, more technologically advanced, and kitchen size and layouts mean you can arrange your kitchen and new and used restaurant equipment according to need and be able to prepare specialty foods.
Main Auction Services is part of that makeover. Almost 50 years of commercial restaurant equipment sales and service to you means we are the best supplier to assist you with your kitchen makeover. The only sure thing about your restaurant is it is going to change and we want to help you manage that change. From redesign, new restaurant equipment selection and trade ins, to state of the art evaluation with size, location, and yes even down to the smalls and barware.
Why Get A Makeover?
Improve Productivity and Food Quality - Serve quality hot food to customers with the best guest experience possible. New linear designs putting cooks in the center of zones, where they do everything simply by turning, as opposed to walking. Self-contained zones: lika a griddle and the finishing production counter; one for main sides, and salads; and the third has fryers and conveyor toasters. Redesigned spaces will be led by four cooks, one cook at each station plus one floating among the stations to support each area are just one way to experiment on your style food service. Once the food is ready, it goes to a pass-through window for servers and expediters to collect.
With less congestion in the kitchen, via fewer cooks working in the new kitchens as well as fewer bodies since servers won’t be milling around, and instead will only come to the window. With this new design the physical requirements will be easier for chefs, who will work front-to-back instead of left-to-right, enabling them to take significantly fewer steps. And the travel time for the food is also reduced because the food goes directly to the pass-through window as soon as it is ready. It is this efficiency of preparing food that will contribute your restaurant to serve hotter food in the future. Also consider that if food flows into a central location where it sits under heat lamps to be expedited things like new cheese melters will also contribute to the heated environment, as will new plate warmers.
While the new prototype kitchens may cost more to build, size and space planning will gain more seats in the front of house, which should help recover the investment.
Bigger and Better Kitchens - For those restaurants and institutional kitchens that plan to expand, adding necessary things like combi ovens, saute stations, fryers, gas ranges, oven, grills, tilt skillets, blast chillers, walk in coolers, and walk in freezers, and more will increase seats in the front of the house as well as growing the kitchen for more menu capabilities. Bigger dishrooms with more capacity and exhibition kitchens both with additional dish capacity means more organization and less chaos.
Consider New Trending Equipment - Specific menu items may dictate new equipment and be a means for efficiency. From scratch cooking is a big trend in 2017, and according to statistics menus are more intense and special prep areas can be easily implemented. Chefs are trying to do more from scratch—so you have specialized prep areas, like an area to roll out the dough or an area for bakery prep, and specialty equipment as an examples. New baking ovens to wood-fired ovens, pasta cookers, pasta extruders, batch freezers, doughnut fryers, and pressure fryers are items for consideration.
Chefs in fast casual, franchise operations, smaller cafes on the other hand can become smaller when new equipment's considerations are planned for over time. Coming up with the right change out plans for you in your style of restaurant or institution is critical for maximum profits. Remember that here at Main Auction Services, we can help you with these changes. Supporting equipment or infrastructure for smooth operation is what we do. Things like ductwork, ventilation, grease filters, and exhause hoods work must be done prior to completion of your new kitchen.
Efficient Spending - It’s not just about new types of equipment but also about finding more efficient equipment. The truth is having extra seats doesn’t do you any good if you don’t have the kitchen capacity to keep up with demand. Restaurant operators are spending more time finding Energy Star–rated appliances, and looking into rebate dollars that are offered through state and local governments to incentivize investment in more efficient choices.
If you can focus on controlling the bottom line better, especially for multi-unit operators some of the higher efficiency fryers use less oil so they recover faster. And with more efficient burners and more efficient exhausts, it takes less fuel and less oil—and that also reduces the energy needed to heat the oil. Consider storage options as well and in a new kitchen placement of water heaters, and other mechanical equipment above ceilings or on easily accessed platforms frees up floor and wall space.
Consideration of specialized equipment is on carts that can be rolled up as needed, eliminates moving the food around the kitchen unnecessarily, and that has the added advantage of reducing food safety problems. Many chefs believe that the next big change will be induction cooking and new refrigerants. However, induction cooking will replace ranges and cook tops, and manufacturers are developing griddles for this technology. Prevalence of induction cooking to grow as a new generation of student chefs tries it at culinary school and gains exposure to it. Once the price of induction cooking technology drops, it will gain popularity just as in Europe which has fully embraced this technology.
More options for equipment will be enabled with technology solutions and Wi-Fi, sending alerts to chefs using apps so they can alter cooking times or temperatures without even entering the kitchen. We may likely see more cooking with solid fuels like wood or charcoal. In addition in terms of refrigeration, the newer refrigerants, hydrocarbon and propane, are much less ozone-depleting than the current fluorocarbons, may be more sustainable options will soon become mainstream.
Ventless cooking equipment will be another wave of the future. Equipment won’t have to be under a grease hood even though it may produce grease, because [a ventless system] eliminates the grease by a catalytic convertor and who would have even considered this 5 years ago?
Greater Than the Sum of Its Space is the new norm in the mindset of the restaurant where kitchen equipment comes to play. Don't stop dreaming, keep up with the times and restaurant equipment that will enable your success; and call us here at Main Auction Services. We will be here for the long haul transitions in America, supplying the best, latest high tech restaurant and yes even used restaurant that can put you in the drivers seat for your dining patrons.
Main Auction Services is committed to helping you get the best products from the top manufacturers in the restaurant and foodservice industry. We buy and sell the leading brands to ensure that you have the opportunity to bid on the best quality in refrigeration, furniture, cooking equipment, sanitation supplies, food preparation equipment and dining room essentials through Main Auction Services' online auctions.
Whether you need to buy or sell one piece, or the contents of an entire restaurant, Main Auction Services is your resource for late-model restaurant, bakery and bar equipment, and hot and cold food tables. Call today to speak with a restaurant equipment specialists. Used Restaurant Equipment For Sale, Restaurant Equipment For Sale, and Restaurant Equipment Auctions, Main Auctions Restaurant Equippers Are Here To Serve You
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