There are 5 key points that you think about and really incorporate into your commercial kitchen design:
- Storage – All of your ingredients, food, drinks etc needs to be stored correctly in order to aviod any cross contamination and to keep it as fresh and as tasteful as possible.
- Preparation areas – You will need separate preparation areas in order to completely avoid any chance of cross contamination during any prep.
- Appliances and Equipment – The layout of your equipment and appliances is important as you need the equipment that you will use together, to be placed together in the layout.
- Front of House – As well as having your kitchen set out for your chefs and kitchen team, it needs to be laid out in a way which is both safe and efficient for your front of house servers.
- Cleaning – This is one of the most important parts of running a kitchen and ensuring your commercial kitchen hits all rules and regulations.
Encompassing all of these five different points in a successful way, means you’ll end up with a commercial kitchen design that works for everyone and will in turn help to create a success business.
Commercial Kitchen Design
So where to start when planning out your commercial kitchen? There are a number of considerations that you need to think about when sitting down to plan your commercial kitchen.
You will need to meticulously plan out where your worktops and work spaces will be going. You will also need to be aware of the dimensions that come with all your work spaces. Once you’ve got your work spaces in place, you will then be able to see how much space is available around them. You need to ensure that your team will have a safe amount of space to walk around the kitchen. You’ll also need to make enough space for any equipment doors that will need to be opened and used during service.
When it comes to equipment and appliances, the best practice is to keep everything streamlined and together. Essentially you’re looking to reduce the amount that your kitchen team will need to travel around the area. So for example, your blast chiller, fridges and freezers should all be placed together. Not only will this be beneficially to your staff, it will also make your kitchen as energy efficient as possible.
Your cooking equipment and your refrigeration appliances should be kept apart in order to ensure the refrigeration unit isn’t being overworked. In a similar way, all of your cooking equipment should be placed together in order to work most efficiently with the ventilation hood and the whole ventilation system.
By making sure that you’re grouping together relevant pieces of equipment, you’re making the commercial kitchen easier for your kitchen team to work in, as well as making your kitchen as energy efficient as possible, so it’s a win win!
Professional kitchen layout
There are a few set layout design options that you can choose from. These designs tend to be chosen by personal taste over anything else. This is all about how you want to have your kitchen laid out.
The three design lay outs are –
- Island Style
- Zone Style
- Assembly Line
The island style is similar to what you may find in some domestic kitchens. It consists of one central unit in the middle of the kitchen, with other units and sections surrounding it on the outer sides of the kitchen. Usually, it tends to be your essential cooking equipment that is in the middle, island section. Then the food prep, storage and kitchen-to-serve transition areas on the outer walls. However, you’re not stuck with this configuration. You can reverse it and have your cooking appliances on external walls and prep in the middle island. It’s all up to you.
A zone style commercial kitchen is set up in ones as the name suggests. That means all of your prep areas will be places in one zone, all your refrigeration in a separate zone, cooking in another zone etc. This style of commercial kitchen tends to be one of the most popular designs that are installed in many kitchens. This style works in restaurants, cafes and bakeries.
The final kitchen design is the assembly line style. As the name suggests, this design is set up like an assembly line, like you’d see in a factory. This design tends to work for places that serve just the one style of food, such as pizza places and sandwich shops. And it tends to be in the front of house, rather than the back of house like other kitchens.
The assembly line layout means you start with the first item of food and it gets followed down, and at the end of the assembly line, your customer will have their full meal.
It’s worth thinking about the style of food that you will be serving before deciding on a commercial kitchen design.
Commercial Kitchen Design and Installations
Your kitchen needs to be created in a way that suits your needs. It needs to tick all the boxes, it needs to be safe and energy efficient. If you don’t know where to start when it comes to your new commercial kitchens, why not get a professional catering company involved? NWCE Foodservice Equipment are a company who has engineers that are able to deal with commercial catering equipment service and maintenance, repairs, breakdowns and full kitchen fabrication. Their engineers cover the majority of Great Britain and a range of different kitchens such as bakeries, restaurants and pizzerias just to name a few.
They have a specific team who have years of experience in creating commercial kitchens from scratch, which makes them the perfect place to start when creating your brand new kitchen.
You may be interested in reading the following blogs as well
CREATING A COMMERCIAL KITCHEN THAT SUPPORTS ALL OF YOUR STAFFS NEEDS
