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8 Tips for Designing a More Efficient Restaurant Kitchen
Everyone wants to enjoy what an efficient restaurant kitchen has to offer. To the customer, a hot meal served in no time means the start of a good dining experience, and to the staff, they want to work in a well laid out and routed kitchen without collisions and where what they need can be found quickly.
All types of restaurant kitchens are essentially the same, and whether you’re planning to start building an efficient kitchen or optimizing an existing one, these tips from Chefmax, based on years of extensive experience in commercial kitchens, will help you.
Table of Contents
What is an efficient restaurant kitchen?
The kitchen is the efficiency center of the restaurant. An efficient kitchen aims to enable staff to work in a consistent and efficient manner, where every procedure runs smoothly, staff responsibilities are clearly defined, ingredients are properly managed and cooked quickly without waste.
In such a efficient restaurant kitchen, everyone in their sphere of responsibility follows strict operating practices from the time an order is received to the time the finished product is delivered. Loading and unloading, storage, preparation, cooking, delivery, and cleaning, all these processes are effectively connected to each other without missing, thus shortening the preparation time and allowing orders to be completed in a timely, accurate and easy manner.
8 ways to build an efficient kitchen
The goal of building an efficient restaurant kitchen is to increase employee efficiency and guest satisfaction, and ultimately increase restaurant profits, so whichever way you start, consider what you can ultimately bring to your employees and customers. Note that the optimization process is a win-win, and it would be a mistake to deviate in any aspect, such as customers getting a fast serving experience, but staff being busier and more tired.
1. Evaluate the menu
We need always need to consider these papers that link the front of house and back of house, because each dish on the menu corresponds to a process in the kitchen.
The more types of dishes your restaurant offers, the more ingredients you will need to prepare and the more staff you will need to hire, otherwise you will not be able to support the wide variety of orders.
Cutting back on menu content is the easiest way to do this, which not only takes the stress out of inventory management, but also eliminates many processes in the kitchen. You can make decisions based on business conditions and employee feedback, and then eliminate from your business those dishes that don’t sell well, have ingredients that tend to expire, and have cumbersome cooking steps.
2. Optimize the layout of your kitchen
The right layout for your kitchen can be efficient, safe and less wasteful at the same time.
The ideal efficient restaurant kitchen layout depends entirely on the size and shape of the kitchen space and the type of restaurant, there is no completely fixed format and each kitchen will be laid out differently.
A. Assembly line layout
Each workstation is simply connected, kitchen equipment is arranged in a line, and ingredients are taken out, prepared, cooked and delivered in a complete assembly line, with storage and cleaning areas located behind or to the side of the line to ensure the entire process is not blocked.
Benefits: Maximum efficiency and effective communication
Types of restaurants: Restaurants that need to produce large quantities of the same type of food, serve large numbers of people quickly or have a small number of types of dishes, such as fast food restaurants and pizzerias.
B. Island type layout
A cooking area is set up in the middle of the kitchen, where the gas stove, fryer and grill are placed, surrounded by the storage area, preparation area and cleaning area.Arranged in the order of service provision, the whole forms a circular layout around the cooking island in the middle. The division is clear and easy for staff to communicate.
Advantages: The open layout allows everyone to track and contact each other, simplifying communication, while leaving plenty of open floor space, making it easy to clean.
Suitable restaurant types: Kitchens that are square and spacious can also be modified to fit other shapes and are ideal for European-style restaurants (European-style equipment is often made to be easy to put together).
C. Regional layout
Divide the kitchen into different block areas, with the main equipment placed around the walls to prepare different types of dishes: soups, fried dishes, stir-fry dishes, etc. Each area can have a dedicated chef, and the center of the kitchen is completely open and hollow to ensure staff circulation.
Advantages: clear partitioning, possibility to run several tasks at the same time, preparation of different dishes, easy management.
Suitable restaurant types: Restaurants with large or varied menus, such as hotel restaurants, catering services and other large restaurants. This type requires a large kitchen area, otherwise it can lead to crowding.
D. Single Wall Layout
Along one long wall, commercial kitchen equipment is placed in order of service, and the space in front of the other wall can be vacant, or simple shelves or wall displays can be placed, this layout is similar to a home kitchen.
Advantages: Save space in the kitchen.
Types of restaurants: Snack bar kitchens and food trucks with long, narrow spaces and small staff.
You should never impose these types into a space where they are not appropriate, as this will most likely cause additional crowding and banging. If you need access to exclusive kitchen layout design drawings, please contact Chefmax for free production.
3. Establishment of efficient workbench
A. Articulation of workstations
The main sequence of services provided in a efficient restaurant kitchen is storage, preparation, cooking, delivery and cleaning. The design in these areas should follow the following principles.
• Cooked dishes should be close to the door, and there should be no obstruction between the staff picking up the meal and delivering it.
• The storage and preparation areas should be on the side away from the delivery door, so that the ingredients can be easily removed and processed immediately, and so that they do not block other processes.
• Storage and cleaning areas should not be too close to each other to prevent contamination of stored ingredients with used dishes or cleaning fluids.
B. Organized Placement
• Have workstations that share menu components arranged next to each other according to menu requirements to reduce the distance cooks have to walk when they need to make these dishes at the same time.
• If tools are always placed in defined places, then employees will not waste their time looking for them. For example, knives, bowls and spoons, keep them in a place where they can be easily reached or put back in a way that maximizes employee efficiency.
4. Upgrade your equipment
Commercial kitchen equipment is most directly related to speed of preparation and cooking efficiency. Older kitchen equipment will inevitably start to slow down, leading to longer wait times and overall frustration for staff. Whether you are planning to purchase equipment or need to upgrade your old equipment, here are a few things to consider.
A. Speed
Kitchen appliances designed for more efficient and faster cleaning have a positive impact on kitchen performance, and a particular device with high-speed features may save minutes of valuable time in your kitchen.
The most efficient continuous feed handling machines can chop food or seasonings in bulk, saving nearly half the prep time, the fastest dishwashers can clean used dishes in 45s, and high heat gas ranges can reduce the time it takes to cook a dish. These time savings add up to an unparalleled advantage for your kitchen.
B. Automation
This type of equipment is increasingly being chosen today, and they mostly come with menus and timers that can be edited and memorized to support more complex cooking processes. The more common automated devices are ovens, fryers, pasta cookers, dishwashers and stir-fryers.
Choosing equipment with a high degree of automation can save labor and reduce errors, but at the same time they will be more expensive than ordinary equipment. It is also important to note that automation is not only in the use of the process, if the equipment includes automatic cleaning and self-draining process, you can also save cleaning time and labor.
C. Keep warm
Keeping warm equipment (including heating brackets and countertop steam tables) keeps meals and soups warm, does not lower the temperature while waiting for staff to serve, and increases efficiency so you don’t need to reheat or prepare soup when you receive an order, which largely reduces serving time.
Understanding and shopping alone is a complex matter of opinion, you can find a trusted supplier to provide a one-stop kitchen equipment solution to improve the performance of your kitchen.
5. Accurate Inventory Management
Inventory management is a very important part of efficient restaurant kitchen, it is meant to keep the supply flowing smoothly, reduce waste and help you increase your overall profit. Inventory management is not meant to be completely accurate: a 2-5% margin of error is within acceptable limits.
• Minimize inventory and avoid acquiring too many items at once, especially if they are not in high demand or perishable.
• Make good shelf-life labels and use them before they expire.
• Follow the first-in, first-out principle, prioritizing the use of older items before acquiring new ones of the same type.
• Standardizing the amount of each ingredient in a recipe not only helps standardize the taste, but also facilitates accurate calculation of consumption and keeps the amount of waste within reasonable limits.
6. Make changes based on employee feedback
Be sure to listen to the staff and chefs, they are the ones who know the kitchen situation best. Which areas get crowded during busy times, which preparations don’t have time to complete resulting in slowdowns, which equipment is too inefficient …… After collecting these issues, everyone needs to be actively involved to solve the problem as soon as possible, and everyone’s ideas and opinions should be heard.
Staff development is equally helpful in improving efficient restaurant kitchen. When employees are proficient in using the equipment, know where to find what they need, or make suggestions to improve the kitchen based on their own experience, they learn by working independently. Pre-employment employees may make mistakes, but this is part of the learning process, and you can keep track of each employee’s development by holding staff meetings and filling out written reports or questionnaires.
7. Prepare ingredients in advance
The busiest time of the day may keep your employees’ hands busy, with all equipment running at full capacity. Even though employees seem very anxious and busy at this time, they may be less efficient because they have too much work to handle. The best solution is to prepare in advance. It’s important to keep ingredients fresh, but the kitchen will benefit from a more streamlined process if some food and ingredients are prepared ahead of time to save time.
Here’s what your kitchen can do during peak times or before business starts: prepare sauces and soups, wash vegetables and fruits, remove the skins from carrots or potatoes, chop ingredients, and make sure the tools and seasonings needed are in easy reach.
8. Always clean
Cleaning may sound like something that needs to be done at the end of the business day, but it is not. Every employee needs to get into the habit of cleaning at all times. This is the easiest way to prevent accidents caused by clutter, and cleanliness is a form of efficient kitchen.
• Simple cleaning after using the equipment, aspect the next person to use quickly.
• Keep worktops clean and ensure that tools and dishes can be placed smoothly on the countertop.
• Clean up grease, water and vegetable peels on the floor to keep everyone “safe underfoot.
• Keep shelves and cabinets neat and tidy so no one wants to rummage through tools or spices when they are busy.
Summary
An efficient restaurant kitchen will help your business tremendously, but it’s not an immediate success once you get started, building an efficient kitchen is a continuous improvement process, you will keep finding problems and solving them, which makes the kitchen better. Chefmax always supports the efficient construction of all types of kitchens and provides a one-stop kitchen equipment solution, if you have any questions, please contact If you have any questions, please contact us for answers and support.