The restaurant business is fulfilling, but there is an aspect of the business owners’ concerns that is never on their mind. Your kitchen is your engine. If the equipment is unreliable, your menu, service and ambience will collapse. Choosing optimal restaurant kitchen equipment is more than just a purchase. It is an operational strategy.
It doesn’t matter whether you are building a fine dining, a big hotel kitchen equipment, the equipment you buy will affect the following: how quickly your employees are able to work, food consistency, and how costly maintenance is.
You’ll Notice Acceptable Impact of Equipment Quality on Your Business
The following is a valuable lesson that many buyers learn the difficult way. Buy cheap and you’ll pay more. If you buy a commercial range that falls apart in the middle of a service and requires a repair bill, you will also lose potential customers, frustrate employees and damage the reputation of your business.
Having a commercial range fall apart is not the best way to see kitchen equipment. At the same level with plumbing and installation is the equipment. If you decide to save money in the installing hotel kitchen equipment, it will be a decision that you will pay for the rest of your life.
This is a valuable point of reference in the hotel business. In the hotel business, breakfast buffets, serving of meals in the rooms and serving banquets have equipment that will function in a relentless manner.
Basic Equipment Needed for Every Business Kitchen
While every kitchen is different, each one can section off different categories for different practices based on the business being run, or the type of food being served.
Cooking Equipment
Cooking equipment is unsurprisingly at the top on the list of required kitchen equipment. Examples of different types of cooking equipment include commercial ranges, convection ovens, combi ovens, griddles, fryers, and tandoors. What you choose for your cooking lineup will depend on what type of cuisine you plan on offering and the expected demand.
Taking that into consideration, combi ovens have the ability to replace various pieces of equipment and provides the user the ability to control the temperature and moisture, as well. In high volume kitchens, the ability to have control and replace multiple cooking equipment pieces will be well valued.
Gas and electric cooking equipment have their pros and cons, so the choice between the two is worth discussing with the kitchen equipment supplier. Gas is often faster and provides more control of the heat; however, electric stoves are easier to clean and control (specifically during the summer).
Refrigeration and Cold Storage
There is nothing more destructive to a kitchen than the breakdown of a cooling system. In the various types of cold storage systems, there are walk-in coolers, undercounter refrigerators, blast chillers, and display refrigerators. These all need to be of the proper sizing and placement for the volume of your food service(s), not what is expected for the first day, but to what is expected for your needs two years down the line.
Cold storage that is too small tends to lead to a temperature integration that can compromise safety. Conversely, having too much storage space can potentially
lead to a waste of resources and energy to run them.
Getting this right requires working with someone who understands kitchen workflow, not just appliance specs.
Food Preparation Equipment
For the food service sector, it is worth mentioning the various pieces of equipment are of the commercial scale, and not due to the personal use that each piece can handle. Examples of such equipment are commercial mixers, large scale food processors, commercial scale food slicers, sheeters, and even food prep commercial scale equipment.
Having the right equipment can help to alleviate the manual and repetitive components of food prep to the various workers with the expectation that food being served per each service will be standardized, as well.
In hotels with large-scale events, where 200 or more plates may be served at once, fast and reliable prep equipment is critical to successful service.
Warewashing and Sanitation
There is probably no more underrated washing and cleaning equipment than the commercial dishwasher. At the very least, it should keep up with the workflow happening in the kitchen and clean plates in time for service. An unreliable washer creates bottlenecks and inconveniences, especially in high-demand restaurant kitchen equipment environments.
There are the undercounter, pass-through, and conveyor dishwashers to suit washing and cleaning equipment to different scales of operations. Your supplier should consider your service unit and capacity and not your budget to scale your washing and cleaning equipment.
Ventilation and Exhaust Systems
Poor ventilation usually arises when the kitchen fills with steam and smoke or when the staff is exposed to excessive heat. Good ventilation keeps your team comfortable and easy and safe, and it extends the life of your equipment by reducing the heat and the grease that cake up, which is essential in industrial kitchen equipment setups.
A Kitchen Equipment Supplier – What To Look For
The equipment itself is only part of the equation. The partner you buy from matters just as much. Here’s what separates a reliable supplier from a transactional one:
- After-purchase service
- what they sell is what they install, not what they sell, and you book the rest of the contractors
- Industry knowledge; do they know that the set up in a hotel kitchen is different from the one in a restaurant?
- Warranty and spare parts access — Imported equipment with no local spare parts is a liability waiting to happen.
RM Kitchen Equipment prioritizes ensuring all operators avoid the complex, expensive equipment issues that can’t be solved after installation. RM Kitchen Equipment develops a long-term partnership with operators during the business planning and equipment investment phases to save customers valuable time and resources, working closely even with an Industrial Ductable cooler manufacturer when required.
Custom Hotel Kitchen Development
When designing and building an end-to-end hotel operation, multiple distinct hotel food and beverage outlets plus back-of-house all running simultaneously, RM Kitchen Equipment designs to support the food and beverage concept, ensuring back-of-house equipment syncs easily with the centralized management systems to ensure compliance.
When assessing equipment for a hotel operation, it is assumed that all of the following questions are answered:
- How many meals can the equipment support across all guest food and beverage outlets?
- Will the equipment support a 16-hour operation?
- Will the equipment support local health and safety standards, to the food safety standards?
- Will the equipment integrate into the hotel’s KM and POS systems?
- Rarely can the generalists answer these questions. The specialists can.
The Argument for Partnering with Reputable Kitchen Equipment Producers
Not all equipment sold in India is made with the same quality of standards. Some products are put together locally with parts of unknown quality. Some are made in controlled environments with precise specifications and quality control.
There are many ways in which purchasing from reputable kitchen equipment supplier s or manufacturers can be advantageous.
- Durability: Equipment that is made with commercial standards will endure real work without compromising with quality.
- Safety: Poor quality equipment can be dangerous to work with due to improper gas connections and electrical fittings.
- Compliance: Health and Safety Authorities expect that the equipment used in commercial kitchens are compliant to the standards and so are certifi cations.
- Resale Value: Should you decide to refit your kitchen, brand name equipment from reputable manufacturers will retain value.
RM Kitchen Equipment partners with trustworthy manufacturers and uses these connections to custom fabricate and procure the ideal products to suit the actual needs of the clients.
Common Kitchen Equipment Purchasing Errors
While these errors are common in the restaurant industry, even seasoned entrepreneurs are likely to get caught making one of these errors when selecting restaurant kitchen equipment:
Purchasing solely based on monetary value. While it may seem like a good deal, the value decreases with a lower quality option. One should consider the cost of ownership, in addition to the cost of purchasing the product.
Purchasing while ignoring the lead time. Most higher quality products are fabricated to order. If you buy close to the intended opening date, the opening will be delayed.
Disregarding the workflow. While a piece of equipment may seem to be the best solution in isolation, it may disrupt, or create an inefficient workflow. Always consider the kitchen layout and equipment.
Bypassing the AMC discussion. Annual maintenance contracts are generally seen as optional, but in a professional kitchen they are essential. Always ask suppliers about maintenance contracts, and what services are available with them.
Not considering the future. Scaling from 80 to 200 in two years should be an assumption when purchasing restaurant kitchen equipment. If this is the case, the goal should be met either with a low refit requirement or growth supplements.
How RM Kitchen Equipment Handles Projects
The product catalog is the distinguishing factor, but it is the orientation surpluses that separates RM Kitchen Equipment from the rest. Rather than recommending a solution, they take on the role of a consultant, considering the right questions to ask before an answer is given.
RM Kitchen Equipment simplifies the process of kitchen design, equipment, buy, install, and maintain, all through a single channel. As a one-stop-shop for operators who’ve experienced the inconveniences brought about by multiple suppliers, it’s a huge change to use one supplier who provides equipment, install, and maintain under one contract.
Their clients include Restaurant kitchen equipment, hotels, cloud kitchens, industrial kitchen equipment, and food processing units, and they completely serve their customers from the simplest first set up kitchen to the entire hotel kitchen set up with all the required customization and ventilation engineering.
A suitable kitchen operates seamlessly. This means food production is constant and the appliances operate optimally. This is purposely achieved by working with the right team, the right appliances, and the right suppliers who offer the suppliers.
Whether you know what your kitchen needs and are just looking for a design / a new / an upgrade or you are just looking to understand why your kitchen requirement is not being met, stop deciding and let the kitchen experts take the first step. This is a fee you will be justified spending.
The support that RM Kitchen Equipment provides you on the first day to the last day of the kitchen appliances and restaurant kitchen equipment throughout all the years is also what sets them apart.
