Maximizing efficiency in your kitchen design takes planning, research, and hard work. Whether your operation is in the blueprint stage or undergoing a remodel, the pressure to get it right can be intimidating. Winston has the tools to help assure kitchen efficiency.
Why is Having an Efficient Kitchen Design Important for Your Restaurant?
Efficiency has a direct effect on profitability. Higher foot traffic during peak hours can cause severe issues if not reflected in the kitchen layout. Traffic jams in the kitchen can negatively affect the entire service period, from preparation to serving customers’ orders.
Kitchen efficiency boils down to flow. An efficient kitchen design factors all the movement in the kitchen, both people and products. It minimizes traffic jams and maintains a safe environment for everyone in the kitchen.
Commercial kitchen equipment takes up a lot of room. It’s not always easy to accommodate when trying to maximize efficiency. This can be one of your biggest challenges when designing a kitchen. Equipment should be placed to avoid foot traffic issues. For example, do frequently used doors open into busy aisles? Do doors swing in the correct direction to avoid collisions with one another? It’s important to consider more than just the static footprint of an appliance – factor in the space it will require when in use.
Don’t forget to allow for maintenance. Even the best equipment occasionally needs service or repairs. Equipment must be accessible from all sides, or at the very least moveable, to minimize interruptions. Otherwise, it will cause disruptions for your employees and make the repair tech’s job unnecessarily difficult.
Safety and Regulations
Your kitchen layout needs to adhere to health and safety regulations. State and local health departments are prime resources for up-to-date information on regulations and requirements.
Employee safety is also essential. If the layout is not ergonomic or puts staff in risky situations, physical injuries can result. Are counters and shelves at the correct height? Are floors made of material that can be easily cleaned (and kept from getting slippery)?
Avoiding employee injuries isn’t just a decent thing to do. The financial future of your operation demands that you do all you can to keep your employees injury-free.
Efficient Kitchen Design Ideas for Saving Space in the Kitchen
Space is a premium in commercial kitchens. Critically, if your equipment requires hood ventilation, it must reside under a hood. Ventilation hoods represent a considerable expense for commercial kitchens, to install and operate. If you’re a new build and can avoid hoods by selecting equipment that doesn’t require it, that saves a boatload of money. Likewise, suppose you’re an existing operation and can re-tool to hoodless equipment. In that case, it will free up all your floor space and lower your utility costs by not running the vent hood.
Ideally, equipment should be able to perform multiple cooking processes to make every square foot as productive as possible. After all, there’s little room in most commercial kitchens for single-task equipment. essential. If the layout is not ergonomic or puts staff in risky situations, physical injuries can result. Are counters and shelves at the correct height? Are floors made of material that can be easily cleaned (and kept from getting slippery)?
Avoiding employee injuries isn’t just a decent thing to do. The financial future of your operation demands that you do all you can to keep your employees injury-free.
CVap® – Volume Cooking in a Smaller Footprint
Near the conclusion of Disney’s 1992 classic Aladdin, the genie (voiced by the late, great Robin Williams) sums up the jinn condition by saying, “Phenomenal cosmic powers … Itty bitty living space!“ One could paraphrase that quote to describe CVap ovens: Phenomenal cooking power…itty bitty floor space! (Yeah, we know it’s a stretch, but bear with us.) CVap offers versatility and precision in a smaller footprint.
CVap Ovens Are the Solution
CVap Cook and Hold Ovens and Retherm Ovens are flexible enough to handle a variety of cooking processes in a single small footprint. These include steaming, baking, roasting, retherming, holding, sous vide, and more.
Optimize Your Commercial Kitchen Space with CVap Equipment
Available in various sizes, CVap ovens require approximately four to six square feet of floor space. CVap ovens provide capacities ranging from four to fourteen sheet pans within that small space. Indeed, the enormous cooking capacity is a game-changer.
For example, suppose your operation does sous vide cooking. In that case, you’d need an unwieldy number of immersion circulators to match the capacity of a single CVap oven. Because CVap uses controlled vapor as a cooking medium, it delivers sous vide precision and consistency, with or without bags. Eliminating bags saves on the cost of bags and labor, not to mention the expense of the HACCP plan often required for bagged cooking.
CVap Ovens Are the Solution
After a cooking cycle completes, CVap ovens can transition to a hold mode automatically. Consequently, this frees staff from moving food from the oven to a separate holding cabinet. Certainly, CVap keeps food hot and just-cooked fresh for an extended period without overcooking.
CVap technology is also available in holding appliances. CVap holding cabinets and drawers keep hot food fresh for extended periods. They allow you to stock up for rush periods without losing quality. And as much as we’d like everyone’s kitchens to be all-CVap, the reality is that many operations add or replace equipment one piece at a time. CVap holding cabinets are the perfect partner for existing equipment, no matter the brand. Cook in your combi, and hold in a CVap – it’s a win-win for efficiency!
CVap equipment doesn’t require vent hoods* and doesn’t need to be plumbed to drains. This gives you the flexibility to put them anywhere there is sufficient space and electrical power. Arrange your kitchen for the most efficient flow – CVap gives you that freedom.
Let Us Help
Need help figuring out the most efficient design for your kitchen? Contact us! We can advise you on the ideal kitchen equipment to get the most efficient flow.
*See EPA Ventless Approval and check your local requirements
