3 Neglected Areas Where Commercial Kitchen Shelves Increase Productivity

The well-placed shelf, no matter how humble, solves many problems in a hot, busy commercial kitchen. However, it's easy to overlook shelving for niche areas as you plan the massive budget for pantry and serveware shelving. When designing or reconfiguring your commercial kitchen for optimum productivity, remember to make space for shelving and storage in these three areas.

Take vegetarians and vegans seriously by devoting storage shelves and prep space to nonmeat food handling. Metal shelving and tabletops are easy to sanitize and can be combined in niche prep stations.

For example, design a vegan station with a small metal countertop over a vegan-only cooler. Install shelves on the wall above the vegan station to hold spices, flax seed, and other dry ingredients used in the current vegan recipes. Don't allow cross-use of ingredients by other stations including omnivore grill and sauté stations.

A metal vegan/vegetarian station is easy to convert to a peanut-free, gluten-free, or other type of special dietary center with a few changes of ingredients and a thorough cleaning. When customers know you go to the next level of care with dietary restrictions and allergies, their trust in your kitchen increases along with the positive word-of-mouth your restaurant receives.

The dish room is often an afterthought when it comes to adequate shelving. However, dish room attendants can't work magic with poorly conceived dish room designs. Give your dish room staff the gift of efficiency with shelving that improves the workflow.

Provide adequate dirty-dish entrances and clean-dish exits. When possible, include two metal lanes each for incoming and outgoing dishware at the dishwasher point to avoid cross-contamination of cookware, dishware, glassware, and serveware. Have your metal fabricator create angled or corrugated drain troughs that allow food scraps to be handled more efficiently.

Think outside the box for pot and pan storage. Use rack-style metal shelves with ample room for massive pots and cooking equipment. Open shelf racks offer faster drying times for large pots, while space-saving, V-shaped metal shelving angles your stored pots. Segmented metal racks store pans upright for optimum space conservation.

Do you want to sell more desserts and increase that after-dinner revenue stream? Your goals won't be met if the dessert station or pastry-chef area in your kitchen is not respected. Nobody wants a vanilla bean mousse that tastes like garlic or a bowl of peach cobbler with a side of fish juice.

Whether a pastry chef creates your desserts in house, or your expo cuts slices to order from pre-made confections, install a dedicated, sweets-only prep area and shelving. Include racks and storage for cutting implements, dessert plates, non-perishable garnishes, and plate sauces.

Install a dedicated refrigerator for heavy cream, whipped cream, fruit, fresh mint, berries, and other perishable garnishes. If possible, install an under- or over-shelf refrigerator that holds backup cheesecakes and other refrigerated dessert items.

Allow the pastry chef to document anyone who uses the sweet shelving or prep counter for savory items. Establish a strict system so that no chefs are tempted to use the pie knife for cutting meat or the heavy cream in the pastry fridge for making savory stovetop sauces.

Don't lose money in food costs by forcing the pastry chef or dessert-prep staff to work around savory food-prep stations. Eventually, a bad taste in a customer's mouth leads to bad reviews and reduced food sales. Protect your reputation and your bottom line with dedicated dessert prep shelving and storage areas.

Update the worn, unsanitary, and inefficient shelving in your Low-country restaurant by contacting Colonial Kitchen Fabrication & Sheet Metal today. We offer custom metal fabrication and welding solutions to meet the needs of all types of food service operations in the North Charleston and surrounding Carolina regions.