When opening up a new restaurant, your startup costs can easily add up quickly and exceed your budget. The list of essential equipment in your kitchen is among your main startup costs alongside your marketing expenses, permits, licenses, and space lease. As someone that is just starting, you want to ensure that your kitchen staff, servers, and hosts are well-equipped to efficiently carry out their day-to-day duties.
Therefore, it is crucial to have an understanding of what equipment is essential to your restaurant running smoothly. This will ensure that you stay within budget by ensuring that at first, you get that which you need. Once the restaurant is up and running, you can then add the extra equipment. What is and isn’t essential to your kitchen will depend on the kind of service that you run as well as the type of food that you offer your clientele.
For instance, a quick-service fried chicken joint has different needs from a full-service restaurant. At the same time, there will usually be an overlap between what different types of restaurants need. The following list comprises various cooking equipment that each restaurant needs.
- Ovens
Ovens are among the first pieces of equipment that come into mind when you are thinking about opening up your new restaurant. Every kitchen needs a commercial oven, which is different from the regular oven. Commercial ovens are designed with greater capacities and higher fire outputs. This ensures that they can cook efficiently throughout the day without breaking down. When purchasing an oven, you need to first make sure that it is customized to your needs.
In the same way that personalized coffee sleeves boost your restaurant brand identity, a customized oven will be more efficient for making certain meals. When going out shopping for one, first consider the purpose and size of the oven. Additionally, you also need to look at the quality of each oven as well as the brand. The importance of comparing brands is that some brands already have a track record of producing high-quality commercial ovens.
Some of the common oven types include convection ovens, pizza ovens, conduction ovens, and conveyor ovens.
- Food processors
This is yet another important category of equipment that you need to purchase at the beginning when just opening up. Food processors are necessary especially in busy restaurants as they reduce the workload by slicing, blending, chopping, pureeing, and blitzing various ingredients. They will come in handy when you want to make sauces, dips, and dressing.
When shopping you will come across different types of food processors in the market. The first type is batch bowl processors which continually collect the processed food inside of an included bowl. You also have the continuous feed food processors that run continuously where the processed food is dropped into a separate bowl. It is more efficient for more large-scale processing than the previously mentioned one.
You could also get the buffalo processor which is the most powerful, heavy-duty processor. They are designed with all the metal parts in place and will best serve a large busy kitchen restaurant. When buying your processor there are several factors to be taken into consideration. The three most important are the horsepower, the attachments of the food processor, and the manufacturer.
- Mixers
If your restaurant has baked items such as cakes, pizzas, and bread on the menu, you most likely need to purchase a commercial mixer. These are designed to be used more frequently and to handle higher quantities of ingredients. There are three distinct types of mixers.
The first category is the hand mixers. These are hand-held and have a long vertical handle with sharp rotating blades at each mixer’s bottom. They are best suited for chopping up ingredients, emulsifying ingredients, or quickly blending sauces or soups. The second type is countertop mixers which as the name suggests, sit on the countertop. They are ideal for smaller restaurants or bakeries, which only need to mix their ingredients occasionally.
Most home cooks own a version of this mixer, for cookies, cakes, and bread. The last kind of mixer is the floor mixer which is the best type of processor for a bakery or pizzeria. They are efficient for restaurant kitchens that churn out a high volume of dough and batter daily. As the name suggests, these huge mixers stand on the floor and are powerful enough to quickly mix large amounts of ingredients.
- Refrigerators and freezers
Every commercial kitchen needs some kind of refrigeration system. When you don’t have a fridge, it will be practically impossible to prepare fresh ingredients and keep your food fresh. Freezers are also essential as it will be more cost-effective for you to purchase 200 steaks and freeze them, rather than buying 10 steaks daily.
Industrial refrigeration units are designed to meet the needs of establishments in the food industry. For instance, an industrial-grade fridge can cool large pots of soup to a safe temperature in a much shorter time. This makes them crucial for food handling management.
The two main categories of commercial freezers and fridges are walk-in and reach-in units. The former has more storage space but if you are running a small restaurant, a reach-in option may be more ideal. Ensure that your refrigeration systems are installed by professionals to avoid racking up too much money on maintenance and repair.
- Storage containers
Every kitchen staff loves a new shipment of quality storage containers. When opening your establishment, you will need plastic liter containers and hotel pans in all manner of shapes and sizes. These are an essential part of the cook’s prep and line operation.
In addition to these containers, you will require some good tape. Always ensure that your tape remains sticky enough even if it gets wet. Lastly, get sharpies to correctly label these containers from time to time whenever the need arises.
Conclusion
Opening up a new restaurant is the dream of most people in the food industry. These five are some of the most crucial pieces of equipment for your kitchen. Others are grills, shelving, and storage spaces as well as ventilation. Before you make any purchase, do your research, to compare prices, models, and manufacturers.
