How to Design a Commercial Kitchen Layout for Your Restaurant

Do you own a restaurant? If so, then your commercial kitchen layout must be designed to accommodate the needs of both your customers and staff. To help with this process, we have compiled some helpful tips on how to design a commercial kitchen layout for your restaurant. Read on for more information. The design of a commercial kitchen is a complex process. There are many factors to keep in mind. But here we’re going to focus on designing the layout for your restaurant.  Don’t be overwhelmed by the task of designing an entirely new kitchen.  

We can help you with that too! Let’s take a look at what goes into designing a commercial kitchen layout for your restaurant. Kitchen design for restaurants is the most important part of setting up a restaurant. 

A perfect kitchen set-up ensures that your kitchen is always clean, safe, and easy to access when required. There are 6 ways to plan your layout, based on customer demand, menu types, recipe diversity, and business hours among other factors.

Content to explore 

  1. Layout by hours of operation
  2. Layout by meal type
  3. Layout by process
  4. Layout by menu type
  5. Layout by ingredient type
  6. Layout by equipment or ingredient size

Layout by hours of operation

The fact that there are different shifts in a restaurant leads to different workers needing different equipment at hand. For instance, the breakfast shift requires utensils for eggs while lunch demands utensils for burgers. The dinner shift would require more chopping space than the lunch or breakfast sets do. You can also have separate ovens depending on what recipes you tend to serve in a day.

Layout by meal type

In a standard restaurant, you may have different meal types being serving. For example, lunch is salads and burgers while dinner will be pasta and steaks with desserts for after. To deal with this, it would only make sense to have the equipment required for these various meals in front of the cooks at their fingertips during working hours. This way they do not have to constantly run back and forth across the kitchen. Just because they need a particular utensil or ingredient. Well, also just check whether the layout design matches with cabinets. And countertops where you put the meal to prep. As granite countertops in Virginia. Also, other natural stones have a variety of designs that will match your kitchen layout. 

Layout by process

This is more like the assembly line model where your food production starts from one point then goes through several processes. So, before arriving at another point where humans collect them for presentation. This usually involves having a plate warmer at the end of the assembly line.

Layout by menu type

In a restaurant with varied menus, it would make sense to have different equipment in each section. For example, in a Japanese restaurant, you will require sushi boats and a separate area for making various types of sashimi. 

In an Indian restaurant, you may want to consider putting aside utensils. So, that come into contact with meats separately from those used for vegetables or desserts. It is also important to place equipment that requires hand washing separately. Since utensils such as knives cannot be washing in dishwashers where there are electrical components inside them.

Layout by ingredient type

It’s always best practice to group ingredients that are used together in recipes. For example, flour and eggs should be kept in the same area while spices go into another corner next to them. This way there is no need for extra running around. Because you will only have to reach one particular section of your kitchen instead of focusing on various sections at once.

Layout by equipment or ingredient size

In an industrial kitchen setup, most equipment tends to come in standard sizes such as cart-mounted ovens, fryers, and pizza ovens. In this case, it would make sense to put these bigger pieces of equipment towards the entrance. So that they can be easily accessing when required. Or you can put them on the countertops like if you have the cost of granite countertops or other natural stones countertops so it will also make the layout design good. As for smaller items such as spatulas and spoons these can be placed anywhere. But they should be close to the cooking utensils so that they can be easily reached while cooking.

Conclusion 

There are many ways to design a commercial kitchen layout for your restaurant. but the most important thing is that you consider how it will be using. Layout by hours of operation means that if your menu operates 24/7 then there needs to be space in both high-traffic periods and low-traffic periods. Layout by meal type. 

So, should take into account whether or not all meals can feasibly share common equipment or ingredients at certain times (i.e., breakfast, lunch, dinner). Finally, when designing layouts by process think about what kind of food preparation takes place where so everything flows smoothly without too much backtracking between stations.