Designing a commercial kitchen
Considering that the kitchen is the heart of a food service business, the design of the kitchen become crucial. Although great chefs, well trained staffs along with good quality equipment lead the business to success, it can be significantly hard or in some cases even impossible to go towards this direction if the work flow in the kitchen is not right. It is evident that not even the best equipment in the world can perform well, when it cannot be used properly. With a well-designed layout, however, we can make sure that everything is in the right place to make the most out of it.
When it comes to opening a new venue or even renovating an existing place, there are many questions that need to be addressed, well before an action towards the construction. Indeed, like any other project, everything must be planned properly, to make sure that the project will be delivered perfectly and in time.
Some of the key questions at the very beginning would be as follow,
CookLine: What would be our menu? What sort of food we would like to serve? This would guide us to find what type of equipment we may require in our cookline, as the engine of our business.
Exhaust Hood and Ventilation: What is the required size of the hood above the cookline? How deep it needs to be? Does Fresh air make up required? If so, should it be in built to the hood? What type of hood is required? Is the hood island style, V shape or double V shape? Depending on the type of equipment, dimensions and the amount of air flow, the dimension of the required hood can be determined. However, site investigation is still required, as in some cases, vertical extraction or ultraviolet hoods may be the only solutions such as in the venues under residential buildings.
Food Preparation: How we need to prepare our food to be cooked and ready to serve? Do we need food processors, grinders, blenders or mixers, etc? If so, where we can use them or store them? How much benching space we require to work on? Food Preparation area needs to be big enough, so the engine can perform as it should.
Refrigeration: Where do we need a fridge or a freezer? Do we need a Walk-in Cool room? What about a Freezer room? Since majority of food products and ingredients MUST be kept fresh and free from any contamination within a certain temperature, the amount of refrigerated space needs to be determined. However, it is also important to consider where these fridge or freezers need to be located. On the side, under the prep bench, or for faster and easier cooking process, under the cook line.
Storage: How much space we need to store our dry products, pots and pans, utensils and etc? Where it needs to be located? Somewhere at the back or rather closer to the cooking area for easier access? Storage space often is not considered as priorities in the design. Yet, it is one of the major factors that needs to be addressed, which can significantly affect the performance of the business. When it comes to fast but quality food production, the number of pans as an example can affect the process. The pans are used per order and get quickly washed for the next order. Thus, if there is enough storage space for some extra pans, rather less pressure will be on the kitchen and wash up and certainly more dishes can be served.
Service/FOH Performance: How and where the orders get taken? How the dishes go out of the kitchen for service? What about the beverage? How the dishes taken back to BOH to be washed and ready for next serve? These are other important facts that need to be taken into account, as the staff in front of house need to have safe and easy access to the kitchen or pass so the dishes can be rapidly served in time without disturbing the kitchen/chef.
Cleaning and Wash up: Where and how the dishes, pots, pans, trays or utensils get washed and be ready for next use? What type of dishwasher is required? Under counter, pass through, conveyor or flight type dishwasher? It is highly recommended to have a separate wash up area to avoid any food contamination. Again, depending on the type of business and food preparation, number seats and space available, the wash up area needs to be designed well including adequate space to sort, handle and store the items efficiently. A proper wash up area can reduce the need of extra cutleries and crockeries followed by the risk of affecting the kitchen performance.
The success of a food business relies on a good design of the fact that we call it WFC (Work Flow Cycle). From Order to cooking followed by serve to wash up. None of these components should get out of the cycle so that the business can run smoothly on this wheel.
