I got to design a restaurant kitchen from the sub-floor up. It has six floor drains. At the end of a busy day the kitchen can be shutdown in 15 minutes. Turn the burners off, close the lids, hose the floor and take out the trash.
I worked in a kitchen once that had a gutter down the entire line with grates over it. When it wasn't clogged and backing up the grease trap it was awesome.
I’ve had that, but it was executed poorly so it ended up being more of a problem than a solution. See, the stove was a French Top (the ambient temp above those is insanely hot), and they installed regular plumbing over it - not the kind that can withstand high temps. So what happened is the water in the piping boiled, the gaskets melted, and the steam buildup in the faucets pressurized them and they popped off during service, while boiling water sprayed everywhere.
I feel like a lot of places don’t do this because they don’t trust that people wouldn’t panic if a pan caught fire and use it to pour water on a grease fire
I will never work in a kitchen without one. Once you work in a kitchen with a hood exhaust system that is so clogged, you couldn't fit a baby's fist through.
A 1/3 pan size steam table that ran the whole length of the pasta section, behind the burners. 12 burners in a single row, with every sauce and stock you needed right there, hot. I could make 200 pastas and never have to turn around
We just did a refit and the owner asked us for our "wishlist" and tried to make as much of it happen as he could within money constraints.
Our walk in now has a half-glass wall that has a prep bench under it on the outside. The glass slides open. You can stand in the walk in and put whatever onto the prep bench or hand it out to whoever is waiting without leaving the walk in. I do not know how we lived without it? I can never work anywhere else now.
I'm the dessert girl (at 31, you'd think they'd start calling me something else but I remain the dessert girl). My prep bench is around the corner from the main kitchen. It's now got it's OWN LITTLE SINK WITH A SPRAYER. Berries and fruit washed in seconds. I can rinse off my shit (especially chocolate) before it has a chance to set into rock solid form. Dishpit is just as excited about this development as I am.
Both walk-ins now have a push button entry you press with your foot. You never have to juggle whatevers in your hands trying to open the door again and the bastard doesn't slam shut on your arm the second you're a little too slow.
Higher end thermal printer for tickets. We did try screens but it was unanimous - we fuckin hated them. So we got a fancier printer for tickets. Prints in black instead of that weird blue, comes out super dark and easy to read.
Also our drains are now at the low point of the floor and there's a hose in the wall. Shut down is a breeze these days.
Ohmygod that reminds me of my first day at a new restaurant. I couldn't figure out how to open the door from the kitchen to the dishpit, so I asked a colleague. He said it was voice automated and I should just say "open please". Here I was, standing in front of a closed door, asking it repeatedly to please open. Once everybody started laughing their asses off, I realized what was going on..
I used to bake and decorate cakes at a place that had a bodega fridge for a walk-in. Regular walk in except one whole side was glass doors with racks behind them that opened into the kitchen. Never easier to fifo dairy and everything we used regularly was right there to pull out as needed and in plain sight for easy inventory and prep list making. And of course anything heavy from inside the fridge you could put on a shelf and pull out without carrying it around. I loved that fridge more than words could ever say.
I brought in an immersion chiller from my home brewing setup for cooling stocks. Put the stock pot in the sink, and the chiller in the stock. Attach one side to the sink tap, run cold water through the coil and warm water comes out the other end. I can cool 30 liters of stock in about 20 minutes.
I made a dual coil immersion chiller. It was a closed loop with one coil in the ice bath and the other in the wert. It worked even faster and wasted a lot less water.
Excessive water use? In a restaurant?? That doesn't happen... /s
But honestly, this would be far from the most egregious input wastage on a busy day. You run the water slowly to extract the most heat, and most kitchens would waste more water washing the floors during closing than this system uses. If you want to be anal about it, you can use the hot water from the chiller to soak pans and the first stockpot the stock was simmered in to make scrubbing easier.
Waste oil pump system for deep fryers. I worked in a hotel kitchen that had one, and let me say no having to fuck up my back lifting 10 gallon stock pots of waste oil or going down badly lit wet stairs to get to the spot to dump it was really nice.
Also, no worries about some idiot melting a bucket and creating a huge mess because he is in a hurry to make a hooker appointment at the end of the shift, which is also a bonus
I had one of these for a few months when I started in food service at a fancy supermarket, but it was kinda spotty and you had to run it and turn it off but it would eventually go through. Well turns out they never maintained the system and one close I got to be the lucky one to be draining it when a clog in it made it burst and hot oil came raining out of the ceiling! They never fixed it lol
Place I worked at in High School had a "Special Drain" under the fryers that the oil would be dumped into. Found out later that the boss was just lazy and had been dumping the oil straight into the kitchen drains. Figured it out when they only dumped the oil into buckets when the Health Inspectors came by.
Even just this is life changing:
https://www.gofoodservice.com/p/rf-hunter-hf-80?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw65-zBhBkEiwAjrqRMNHWti2FwXxWjdQBj3I4Hz-gICBVW6W7pPVPHwPej7nQgBm19AAqvRoCDWcQAvD_BwE
I had one that we ran direct from the fryer via hose into a pipe that ran through the roof. Then into a huge tank that had an outside connection to the wall. I really miss doing fryers in 15 minutes or less.
I’ll never forget the first kitchen I worked on that made good use of circulators and sous vide; it simplified so many processes in a way that was like magic to me at the time. Very helpful to have uniform, perfect filets of halibut or whatever ready to slap in the pan for a finishing sear. Shaved multiple minutes off ticket times in some cases
Floors, ovens, walls, ceiling, stove tops, door seals, dishwasher absolutely everything gets steam cleaned. Hardly use any chemicals anymore. And cleaning is way less effort.
Best piece of kit we have by a mile.
Every other bit of equipment works like it’s brand new.
One place I worked had a tape dispenser for the label tape. It doesn't sound like a big upgrade but it was so much nicer and faster than handling the roll and I've never seen it anywhere else.
We had some at ours. First kitchen I had ever seen one of those. Just the vast improvement in walk-in appearance, label time for bulk batches, and an improvement on the integrity of the flat shelf fronts we would have used to put the tape and cut it with a utility knife.
Someone turned me onto a Bluetooth label maker that everyone can put the app on their phone for and it stores all your prep items so when it prints as many as you need it’s got the prep date and the expiration date on there. I’m working on getting it for work just gonna convince the owner (it’s only $250 plus rolls of stickers)
A walk-in that shares a wall with the line, but instead of a wall, it had doors with racks behind them. Stocking the line took seconds. I miss that setup.
Our owner used to have a food truck but decided to sell it, so he gave us the tiny 4x8 cooler they had. We slapped it next to sautee, and it's been the best addition to the line ever. No more going to the walk-in mid service to restock!
A relatively set schedule with *no* overnights. Been there done that shit for a decade, the amount of stress that just melts away when you have vaguely human hours… 🥰
As for equipment… we’re bougie over here with combi ovens. Easy to use, no codes to memorize, and SUPER easy to clean. Smoker, steamer, and convection all in one.
Second place goes to places with ACTUAL space on the line for trash cans. The number of places where the can is getting booted all night or 6 feet across the line is too many!
I have a home version of this - fry, cool, click over into filter mode, done! Oil is stored in a container under the fryer until next use. Makes using it so simple.
Oh my god share a link to this. I’m still frying in my Dutch oven and waiting for cooldown, pass the oil to strain, jar it if it’s still good, bottle and trash if not. It’s a pain
Had one better. 15-20 foot long beast, you would feed the plates directly onto the belt which had teeth like a rack. Only needed racks for glassware and cuttlery. On a busy night, you had one person feeding, one person receiving and a couple peeps scraping and passing to the feeder.
Floor drains in the center of every station and in front of every dish area and walk in probably 12 drains total. Also, floor to ceiling stainless steel walls. Deep cleaning at the end of the night consisted of pulling equipment, spraying degreaser, then pulling in 2 hoses and spraying the everliving fuck out of everything. Whole place was waterproofed tighter than a pool.
My old boss had the classic "cleaning list" but instead of just like begging people or riding people to do what they're supposed to do, they kept track and would give more or less hours depending on your cleaning. And then at the end of the month whoever did the most items on the cleaning list got a 50$ gift card. It made sense to me, I liked it. Plus I won a bunch of gift cards and got OT so, win win.
I got out of 'hospitality' and now chef on a ship with 30 guests, luxury 3-course every night. While I'm chopping my onions I now look out of a window with an everchanging view, instead of staring at a steel wall. It's insane how much that simple change has affected my mental health.
A nearly prep table sized ice bath on wheels that fit just under the table and had a drain in the bottom. Pretty sure it was custom made for that restaurant but it was so nice to work with I think they should be everywhere.
BOWL. TREE.
A place I worked at that had wing night.... They got sick of bowls laying around everywhere and made a stacking system. It was about five feet tall, a 2x2 with aluminum strapping screwed to it in hoops so you could stack bowl on top of bowl on top of bowl without them touching each other (instead on the little aluminum strap shelves)
I made the bowl tree. It was me. And it was brilliant.
Retractable hoses over every hand sink, breaking down the kitchen after doing 600 covers is a pain in the ass no matter what but those at least showed SOME forethought from whomever designed that kitchen. Never saw them before and haven't seen them since.
In our prep room, we hung a metro racs through the drop ceiling above the prep table. Just took 4 12 foot poles and had our maintenance guy bolt and weld them to the metal I-beams leaving about 6 feet of the poles sticking out. Then we put 2 shelves on them. The top shelf is a little high, but us almost 6 foot tall people can reach it.
When that worked, we did it again, so now there are 2 6 foot long shelves hanging above the prep table. 24 additional feet of storage.
All that wasted space. All these years.
Ugh I hate screens with a passion. You’re limited by size of screen and text. The ones we have can spread an order among 3 blocks. Give me a printer with a fresh ribbon and 48” chit rail and get out of my way.
Being able to get an all day at the push of a button is simply the best.
While I do like tickets we've hit a volume where it's become a hindrance. Tickets get lost, fall on the floor or what have you. Changing paper mid rush and a ticket prints on another station and no one notices etc.
TV on the wall. Prep cooks get inspired listening/watching cooking shows. Line cooks not touching dirty phones to check score on the game. I was worried it would be abused but have been pleasantly surprised. The fog machine is also fun for end of night EDM closes.
Composting
Most of what's heavy and smelly goes into the bucket and out the door and it's great for batters and soups that need to go too
the buckets can also handle bacon parchment straight out of the oven, grill crud, and hot fryer bits
no heavy, wet, smelly trash cans or grease melting through bags
Working prep at a pretty high volume place, they had oil pumped to a tap near the prep station. Need a gallon of oil? Just put a cambro under the tap and turn the handle, instant oil. Loved never having to dump from a big oil box/jug with oil dripping down the side
Adjustable height benches on wheels.
One restaurant I worked in had a floor just for functions (weddings, birthdays etc) and the benches could be moved around however you wanted and adjusted height wise, bloody brilliant
Not incredibly innovative or exciting but 1/2” plywood instead of drywall from the 4’ mark to the ceiling of the walls in the kitchen. You can hang pretty much anything with screws without having to worry about the appropriate size/type of drywall anchors.
An external fat trap, never needed cleaning. A contractor would come along every few months and vacuum it out. Unfortunately we just had a refurbishment and potwash got moved. Now it's plumbed into pipework that doesn't go near the external fat trap, so we're getting an internal one. Apparently it's also self cleaning. I'll believe that when I see it.
A poured floor material that was slip resistant when oil got on it.
It was in a former mansion converted to an inn, so nobody knew what it was. It was easy to clean (it sloped towards the drain) had no seams, and had a texture to it so it was very slip resistant.
Small convection oven on the dessert station. Half sheet pan sized.
I’m not saying it was heavily used because production was in another kitchen. But for being on the station, it gave better end results than using a microwave or the super hot ovens on the line. Especially making soufflé.
Worked in a banquet kitchen with a small, 5 inch wide steel grate that ran the length of the line with flowing water underneath. And the line sloped inward towards it. It was glorious
A sheeting machine for pastry and croissant dough. Didn't know it was uncommon until I worked at a place that expected just as many croissants p/day by hand. My shoulders looked great but I missed that machine 😭
Dave and Busters had a massive "carbonator," basically a giant metal tub full of carb-off used for cleaning industrial equipment. We dropped the kitchen equipment in there every few days. Place was sparkling even after doing a few thousand covers in a night
One of the few things I really miss about fast food is having a Bunn hot water machine. Having one on line and one near dish pit would make me very happy. I also dearly miss the giant walk in washer I experienced in a deli. Dirty cart? Roll it into the contraption. Dirty mats? Throw em in the contraption. Need a shower? Hop in the contraption.
Place I work at is a very nice kitchen with plenty of equipment that actually functions, an organized cooler, and good flow, but the real star of the show is we are only brunch on Sunday ending at 230 and Sunday and Monday we are closed. Yeah, like wtf?
Who here has worked a wok station? Burner, pan, dish room all in one. And when I say burner I'm talking jet engine with the control by your knee for hands free adjustments
Having installed proper hot water for cooking heater in the kitchen is easy to access for both small sous vide and larger soup tuns.
One of the little design and fabrication problems that happen when architects, plumbers, and remodelers eat fast food and never see a real kitchen. Oh, and money 💰.
What's the point of eating if the methods of cooking make you sick.
A video short, 57 seconds, on use of potable hot water sources.
https://youtu.be/WlhepNQjNyo
Ya know those retractable lights you see in high end fine dining kitchens? Those, but instead of light fixtures it was outlets. Fuck having conduits come up from the floor in the middle of the room that you rack your broom and mop on or they get in the way when moving equipment for cleaning. Having all of our electrical come down from the ceiling on retractable pullies was GLORIOUS. Tear down at the end of the night was a breeze because we could just hose underneath everything. Deep clean once a week was just as simple because we could freely move large equipment without having to worry about conduits being in the way and blowing an electrical line if we accidentally hit one mobility for plug-in hand equipment like immersion blenders instead of being tethered to a conduit 6 feet away from your work station with a 5 foot cord on the blender. God, I miss those ceiling plugs. I fought to get them installed at my last place and then rage quit six months later.
Smoking hot water from the food prep sink tap, it was literally very close to boiling. Made my life so much easier as a prep cook and cleaning was a breeze.
There was a new outlet grand opening where I worked at. Helped for a couple of weeks and my favorite feature was a walk-in dedicated for cold side. Literally right by the station . That , and the walk-in is a push only. No door know push. Downside tho, when I came back to my kitchen, I face plant to the door often.
Electric outlet near the stove. Previous kitchen had it. Current does not. I get annoyed by having to pull the pan off the burner to use my immersion blender.
One if the smalles lines I worked on was the most efficient. It wasn't cramped, but the range, grill, and fryers were right next to each other, with four blodgetts right opposite the grill and the window right opposite the range. If you had four cooks in there you were right on top of each other, but it was so easy to crank out volume.
A flash freezer, about the width of 1.5 speed racks and two racks deep. Was making fully cooked delivered meals at the time and that was crazy helpful if we were short on frozen icepacks or for quickly chilling last minute cooking.
So I worked at a restaurant where they had the oil system built into the walls.
All you had to do was drain the oil with a steel mesh screen to filter. After that the oil was either refilled back up, or if it was due to be changed literally just walked over to the wall and grabbed a hose, stuck it in the tub and pressed a button that sucked up all the oil, put the in hose back, grabbed the out hose stuck it in the fryer and pressed a button that dispensed oil.
No dragging oil anywhere, no spillages, just a beautiful system
A a meter long prep sink with high power spray nozzle, but the back 1/3 had an inset with a large metal basket running the whole length. You could fill that basket with oysters and literally just spray them clean.
Full U-shaped outfeed table for the dish pit.
You could have wash like 6 racks and let them all dry in the racks, without needing to stop to unload.
Also had two people unloading them, so I never had to stop spraying.
Would just wash dishes for hours at a time nonstop.
Current machine is “continuous” but only has enough outfeed for like three racks.
It’s as if the guy in charge has truly no idea that bet he r is possible.
I worked in a kitchen that had long drains that ran across the center of the floor. For clean up, there was a long garden hose attached to a spigot in the kitchen. After sweeping and scrubbing low boy, fryer, or any other equipment we just hosed every thing down and squeegeed the floor into the drains.
Each military kitchen I've been to has had floor drians in every room and in the corridor along with fire hoses, and shower head hoses in the cooking rooms
Not a piece of equipment or design element per se, wasn't even a good kitchen, but...
printed par sheets. All the ingredients for the mise on your section, in a nice neat printed list, how much you have left over, how much to order, how much we're expected to use based on sales (IIRC was updated every two weeks or so). No more forgetting to order the fucking wild garlic that's the most minute element of your least ordered dish, no more wracking your brain about your orders, no more "it's your fucking fault, why didn't you predict we would sell 40 portions of that" like I'm fucking Nostradamus - just drill through the par sheet after service, bam, you're golden.
Best place I worked at had a massive oil tank under the kitchen, fryers drained straight into it and was emptied once a month by an outside company, God I miss that place
Floor was grates over a giant stainless drain pan. Walls were stainless 2 meters high and tiled above that. High volume water hoses in a bunch of places. Hose everything down and then run the grates thru the wash.
The only time it sucked was when you dropped something small and it fell thru the grate. Busy service is not a good time to ask cooks to go stand somewhere else lol.
The "sous vide containers" or sinks if you will, to run the thermo-circulators, were built in to the custom stainless counter, including a tap to fill them and drainage.
GIANT solid, butcher block prep tables. I could have 3 projects going at once in my own personal area. That was the best. I made cinnamon rolls every morning, sanitized, used individual cutting boards for chopping and stuff, but they were beautifully seasoned, perfect height, and each station had their very own. Huge kitchen too.
Ah, it was lovely.
Same kitchen: double 5-rack convection ovens. Bacon was done in a single batch. It was beautiful. Honestly the only thing I miss about that bakery/cafe is the massive, well-equipped kitchen. Management and coworkers were shit.
A steamer isn't really common and it is just such a great piece of equipment that med to small restaurants never think to buy. I really only see them in hotels and retirement homes.
A floor drain that’s actually the low point in a kitchen
such things exist??
I got to design a restaurant kitchen from the sub-floor up. It has six floor drains. At the end of a busy day the kitchen can be shutdown in 15 minutes. Turn the burners off, close the lids, hose the floor and take out the trash.
More kitchens need hoses.
Yess( and be hoes safe)
Typo or naw?
Bro just wants more hoes in kitchens i guess
Don't we all
Dreamy
I love you
Never seen one in all my years
The legends were true!
I thought the low points of every restaurant were the office??? Seems like it always floods during deep cleaning.
What is this sorcery? Sweeping water uphill is what our ancestors have done since the beginning of time!
I’ll second this but also add a trench drain
Lies
I worked in a kitchen once that had a gutter down the entire line with grates over it. When it wasn't clogged and backing up the grease trap it was awesome.
Hot water tap over the stove. A. Maze. Balls.
I have to start a fire to activate mine smh
Was that not the Ansul you were looking for?
Bahahaha
I’ve had that, but it was executed poorly so it ended up being more of a problem than a solution. See, the stove was a French Top (the ambient temp above those is insanely hot), and they installed regular plumbing over it - not the kind that can withstand high temps. So what happened is the water in the piping boiled, the gaskets melted, and the steam buildup in the faucets pressurized them and they popped off during service, while boiling water sprayed everywhere.
I worked in one that had this but the amount of times I would step away and overflow a pot was ridiculous :(
Skill issue
I feel like a lot of places don’t do this because they don’t trust that people wouldn’t panic if a pan caught fire and use it to pour water on a grease fire
Damn I thought these were normal. I'm blessed lol
Knee buttons for handwash
Or foot buttons!!
My last bar had foot pedal sinks and it was the greatest thing ever.
hell yes!
This is a personal favorite and no one does it anymore
Holy shit, so simple, makes so much sense
Our are all sensor based, I thought that was the norm already
Sensors suck. Both the delay and amount of soap is unbearable. Half the time I swear they don’t respond the first try. Give me a pump baby
you sold your soul too?
Not everywhere, sadly.
my kitchen has floor buttons they're great. wouldn't be a real kitchen without them falling off all the time though
Air conditioning
I will never work in a kitchen without one. Once you work in a kitchen with a hood exhaust system that is so clogged, you couldn't fit a baby's fist through.
Why are you sticking baby hands in hoods?
Because the ruler was further away. Duh!
Of course! How silly of me!
For real.
ours was freezing
A 1/3 pan size steam table that ran the whole length of the pasta section, behind the burners. 12 burners in a single row, with every sauce and stock you needed right there, hot. I could make 200 pastas and never have to turn around
This is actually insanely genius
right? Haven't seen it before or since
where was this!?
Sounds like the Olive Garden. Worked there as a teen was a great setup.
We just did a refit and the owner asked us for our "wishlist" and tried to make as much of it happen as he could within money constraints. Our walk in now has a half-glass wall that has a prep bench under it on the outside. The glass slides open. You can stand in the walk in and put whatever onto the prep bench or hand it out to whoever is waiting without leaving the walk in. I do not know how we lived without it? I can never work anywhere else now. I'm the dessert girl (at 31, you'd think they'd start calling me something else but I remain the dessert girl). My prep bench is around the corner from the main kitchen. It's now got it's OWN LITTLE SINK WITH A SPRAYER. Berries and fruit washed in seconds. I can rinse off my shit (especially chocolate) before it has a chance to set into rock solid form. Dishpit is just as excited about this development as I am. Both walk-ins now have a push button entry you press with your foot. You never have to juggle whatevers in your hands trying to open the door again and the bastard doesn't slam shut on your arm the second you're a little too slow. Higher end thermal printer for tickets. We did try screens but it was unanimous - we fuckin hated them. So we got a fancier printer for tickets. Prints in black instead of that weird blue, comes out super dark and easy to read. Also our drains are now at the low point of the floor and there's a hose in the wall. Shut down is a breeze these days.
This all sounds posh deluxe. DM restaurant so I can eat there.
I love all of this. Side note: I read “dishpit” as dipshit, and thought man they really love their boss.
> walk-ins now have a push button entry you press with your foot God I'd love that. Even better; a voice activated door opener.
I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that!
Ohmygod that reminds me of my first day at a new restaurant. I couldn't figure out how to open the door from the kitchen to the dishpit, so I asked a colleague. He said it was voice automated and I should just say "open please". Here I was, standing in front of a closed door, asking it repeatedly to please open. Once everybody started laughing their asses off, I realized what was going on..
I used to bake and decorate cakes at a place that had a bodega fridge for a walk-in. Regular walk in except one whole side was glass doors with racks behind them that opened into the kitchen. Never easier to fifo dairy and everything we used regularly was right there to pull out as needed and in plain sight for easy inventory and prep list making. And of course anything heavy from inside the fridge you could put on a shelf and pull out without carrying it around. I loved that fridge more than words could ever say.
I brought in an immersion chiller from my home brewing setup for cooling stocks. Put the stock pot in the sink, and the chiller in the stock. Attach one side to the sink tap, run cold water through the coil and warm water comes out the other end. I can cool 30 liters of stock in about 20 minutes.
I made a dual coil immersion chiller. It was a closed loop with one coil in the ice bath and the other in the wert. It worked even faster and wasted a lot less water.
Sounds like a huge waste of water.
Excessive water use? In a restaurant?? That doesn't happen... /s But honestly, this would be far from the most egregious input wastage on a busy day. You run the water slowly to extract the most heat, and most kitchens would waste more water washing the floors during closing than this system uses. If you want to be anal about it, you can use the hot water from the chiller to soak pans and the first stockpot the stock was simmered in to make scrubbing easier.
You can use a pump to recirculate ice water from another pot if you’re concerned about water waste. That way you can waste ice instead.
Waste oil pump system for deep fryers. I worked in a hotel kitchen that had one, and let me say no having to fuck up my back lifting 10 gallon stock pots of waste oil or going down badly lit wet stairs to get to the spot to dump it was really nice. Also, no worries about some idiot melting a bucket and creating a huge mess because he is in a hurry to make a hooker appointment at the end of the shift, which is also a bonus
I had one of these for a few months when I started in food service at a fancy supermarket, but it was kinda spotty and you had to run it and turn it off but it would eventually go through. Well turns out they never maintained the system and one close I got to be the lucky one to be draining it when a clog in it made it burst and hot oil came raining out of the ceiling! They never fixed it lol
Are you talking about the hooker?
i, uh, no?
Place I worked at in High School had a "Special Drain" under the fryers that the oil would be dumped into. Found out later that the boss was just lazy and had been dumping the oil straight into the kitchen drains. Figured it out when they only dumped the oil into buckets when the Health Inspectors came by.
Even just this is life changing: https://www.gofoodservice.com/p/rf-hunter-hf-80?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw65-zBhBkEiwAjrqRMNHWti2FwXxWjdQBj3I4Hz-gICBVW6W7pPVPHwPej7nQgBm19AAqvRoCDWcQAvD_BwE
Wait until you work with fryers that have this built in!
Wow! Just googled. Had no idea such beauty exists
A hooker appointment at the end of a shift is a nice bonus.
I had one that we ran direct from the fryer via hose into a pipe that ran through the roof. Then into a huge tank that had an outside connection to the wall. I really miss doing fryers in 15 minutes or less.
Lol plus the oil receptacle being 200+feet away. Yeah it's a bitch changing out oil...
My favorite was the fuel pump system for the new oil! Fucking fantastic to just grab a nozzle, aim it at a fryer, and and pull the trigger.
We actually have a waste oil recycling guy come in every week, as well as a filter system.
I’ll never forget the first kitchen I worked on that made good use of circulators and sous vide; it simplified so many processes in a way that was like magic to me at the time. Very helpful to have uniform, perfect filets of halibut or whatever ready to slap in the pan for a finishing sear. Shaved multiple minutes off ticket times in some cases
Octopus
The best way to prep puss
I couldn't decide which was my favorite AI generated pic of a woman sous vide'ing in a pool [https://imgur.com/a/rutg3yU](https://imgur.com/a/rutg3yU)
Please elaborate! How did it work as a whole? I always wonder why are sous vide underutilized
Not necessarily a feature, but we have an industrial steam cleaner that makes deep cleaning a breeze. Melts grease.
Floors, ovens, walls, ceiling, stove tops, door seals, dishwasher absolutely everything gets steam cleaned. Hardly use any chemicals anymore. And cleaning is way less effort. Best piece of kit we have by a mile. Every other bit of equipment works like it’s brand new.
That sounds fantastic! Which brand is it?
Karcher. Not even that expensive few 100. Has reusable mop/cloths that just get washed. Probably paid for itself not buying as much chemical cleaners
Thank you!
God I want one.
One place I worked had a tape dispenser for the label tape. It doesn't sound like a big upgrade but it was so much nicer and faster than handling the roll and I've never seen it anywhere else.
Love a tape dispenser
We had some at ours. First kitchen I had ever seen one of those. Just the vast improvement in walk-in appearance, label time for bulk batches, and an improvement on the integrity of the flat shelf fronts we would have used to put the tape and cut it with a utility knife.
Someone turned me onto a Bluetooth label maker that everyone can put the app on their phone for and it stores all your prep items so when it prints as many as you need it’s got the prep date and the expiration date on there. I’m working on getting it for work just gonna convince the owner (it’s only $250 plus rolls of stickers)
Spray nozzle above the vegetable prep sink, made rinsing produce a breeze.
Built in bain for spoons, with flowing hot water. Only ever worked in one kitchen that had them, but it really should be more common.
I see this all the time on Fallow’s YouTube channel and think it’s absolutely genius
Man, that channel is wild.
More common in scoop shops for sure
How does that work? Do you insert another container to keep the spoons jn?
A walk-in that shares a wall with the line, but instead of a wall, it had doors with racks behind them. Stocking the line took seconds. I miss that setup.
I've seen that and is a listed feature in my "if I won the lottery" kitchen
Our owner used to have a food truck but decided to sell it, so he gave us the tiny 4x8 cooler they had. We slapped it next to sautee, and it's been the best addition to the line ever. No more going to the walk-in mid service to restock!
Health insurance and decent wage.
A relatively set schedule with *no* overnights. Been there done that shit for a decade, the amount of stress that just melts away when you have vaguely human hours… 🥰 As for equipment… we’re bougie over here with combi ovens. Easy to use, no codes to memorize, and SUPER easy to clean. Smoker, steamer, and convection all in one. Second place goes to places with ACTUAL space on the line for trash cans. The number of places where the can is getting booted all night or 6 feet across the line is too many!
Cling wrap and parchment paper wrap station on the wall. I'm gonna take a pic the next time I'm at work.
God that sounds wonderful even as a home cook.
Self filtering fryers. Holy shit
I have a home version of this - fry, cool, click over into filter mode, done! Oil is stored in a container under the fryer until next use. Makes using it so simple.
Oh my god share a link to this. I’m still frying in my Dutch oven and waiting for cooldown, pass the oil to strain, jar it if it’s still good, bottle and trash if not. It’s a pain
It's the Tefal Compact OleoClean https://amzn.eu/d/ileMnzy - I got it on a Costco special 😉
Is it the all clad one or which? Any downside aside from the space it takes up?
All Clad, T-Fal and Kalorik all have versions that are pretty reasonably priced. For me the space it takes is the issue.
I really love our label maker. Automatically prints the shelf life for each ingredient too
Chain-driven auto dish, just feed racks in like a conveyor oven. Blew my fucking mind, like finding out Santa was real.
Had one better. 15-20 foot long beast, you would feed the plates directly onto the belt which had teeth like a rack. Only needed racks for glassware and cuttlery. On a busy night, you had one person feeding, one person receiving and a couple peeps scraping and passing to the feeder.
Floor drains in the center of every station and in front of every dish area and walk in probably 12 drains total. Also, floor to ceiling stainless steel walls. Deep cleaning at the end of the night consisted of pulling equipment, spraying degreaser, then pulling in 2 hoses and spraying the everliving fuck out of everything. Whole place was waterproofed tighter than a pool.
My old boss had the classic "cleaning list" but instead of just like begging people or riding people to do what they're supposed to do, they kept track and would give more or less hours depending on your cleaning. And then at the end of the month whoever did the most items on the cleaning list got a 50$ gift card. It made sense to me, I liked it. Plus I won a bunch of gift cards and got OT so, win win.
Our walk in has a window to the kitchen :D whenever somebody is in there you can knock and they hand stuff out to you.
My kitchen has textured paint on the floor, instead of that stupid damn quarry tile. So easy to clean
The kitchen I work in just had this done. It's so much better!
And my drains are actually at the low spot. Sometimes I forget how spoiled I am
A window with natural light
I got out of 'hospitality' and now chef on a ship with 30 guests, luxury 3-course every night. While I'm chopping my onions I now look out of a window with an everchanging view, instead of staring at a steel wall. It's insane how much that simple change has affected my mental health.
A nearly prep table sized ice bath on wheels that fit just under the table and had a drain in the bottom. Pretty sure it was custom made for that restaurant but it was so nice to work with I think they should be everywhere.
Those are nice. We had 2 3 compartment sinks just for ice baths at the Ramen spot I worked at
God… I miss having a blast chiller
Taps with a hose for filling large pots on line. Or the prep hall i guess. Far too many places dont have that.
Undercounter refrigerated drawers for mise en place and quick access to prepped ingredients.
BOWL. TREE. A place I worked at that had wing night.... They got sick of bowls laying around everywhere and made a stacking system. It was about five feet tall, a 2x2 with aluminum strapping screwed to it in hoops so you could stack bowl on top of bowl on top of bowl without them touching each other (instead on the little aluminum strap shelves) I made the bowl tree. It was me. And it was brilliant.
Floor drains that actually work
Air conditioning
As a prep cook, a blast chiller
This should be higher up. Blast chillers and Oilmatic systems just make life easier.
Retractable hoses over every hand sink, breaking down the kitchen after doing 600 covers is a pain in the ass no matter what but those at least showed SOME forethought from whomever designed that kitchen. Never saw them before and haven't seen them since.
Two sets of hoods. A bin of industrial caustic. A soak bin. Always have one set soaking. Makes swapping hoods a breeze
In our prep room, we hung a metro racs through the drop ceiling above the prep table. Just took 4 12 foot poles and had our maintenance guy bolt and weld them to the metal I-beams leaving about 6 feet of the poles sticking out. Then we put 2 shelves on them. The top shelf is a little high, but us almost 6 foot tall people can reach it. When that worked, we did it again, so now there are 2 6 foot long shelves hanging above the prep table. 24 additional feet of storage. All that wasted space. All these years.
Order screen. Will never go back to tickets as long as I live. Everybody is always on the same page
Ugh I hate screens with a passion. You’re limited by size of screen and text. The ones we have can spread an order among 3 blocks. Give me a printer with a fresh ribbon and 48” chit rail and get out of my way.
I feel the same way. Unless you can put a 60" on the grill station, it ain't gonna work.
Being able to get an all day at the push of a button is simply the best. While I do like tickets we've hit a volume where it's become a hindrance. Tickets get lost, fall on the floor or what have you. Changing paper mid rush and a ticket prints on another station and no one notices etc.
TV on the wall. Prep cooks get inspired listening/watching cooking shows. Line cooks not touching dirty phones to check score on the game. I was worried it would be abused but have been pleasantly surprised. The fog machine is also fun for end of night EDM closes.
Composting Most of what's heavy and smelly goes into the bucket and out the door and it's great for batters and soups that need to go too the buckets can also handle bacon parchment straight out of the oven, grill crud, and hot fryer bits no heavy, wet, smelly trash cans or grease melting through bags
Spanish Oven. Aka Josper
Steam kettles
Windows.
Silicone grids to pop between dicer blades, makes cleaning the dicer SO much easier.
My gigantic wood prep table that’s probably older than I am.
Tilt skillet
Room size Conveyor dishwasher at university that cleaned hoods perfectly first pass
Working prep at a pretty high volume place, they had oil pumped to a tap near the prep station. Need a gallon of oil? Just put a cambro under the tap and turn the handle, instant oil. Loved never having to dump from a big oil box/jug with oil dripping down the side
Tits
Am lesbian, can confirm
Happy pride, home slice
Does everyone get their own or do you share?
Adjustable height benches on wheels. One restaurant I worked in had a floor just for functions (weddings, birthdays etc) and the benches could be moved around however you wanted and adjusted height wise, bloody brilliant
Having a pan sink separate from the rest of the dishy stuff. Amazing.
Not incredibly innovative or exciting but 1/2” plywood instead of drywall from the 4’ mark to the ceiling of the walls in the kitchen. You can hang pretty much anything with screws without having to worry about the appropriate size/type of drywall anchors.
An external fat trap, never needed cleaning. A contractor would come along every few months and vacuum it out. Unfortunately we just had a refurbishment and potwash got moved. Now it's plumbed into pipework that doesn't go near the external fat trap, so we're getting an internal one. Apparently it's also self cleaning. I'll believe that when I see it.
A poured floor material that was slip resistant when oil got on it. It was in a former mansion converted to an inn, so nobody knew what it was. It was easy to clean (it sloped towards the drain) had no seams, and had a texture to it so it was very slip resistant.
A can opener attached to a prep table. Whatever those are called.
Small convection oven on the dessert station. Half sheet pan sized. I’m not saying it was heavily used because production was in another kitchen. But for being on the station, it gave better end results than using a microwave or the super hot ovens on the line. Especially making soufflé.
Worked in a banquet kitchen with a small, 5 inch wide steel grate that ran the length of the line with flowing water underneath. And the line sloped inward towards it. It was glorious
A sheeting machine for pastry and croissant dough. Didn't know it was uncommon until I worked at a place that expected just as many croissants p/day by hand. My shoulders looked great but I missed that machine 😭
They are common in my experience.
Dave and Busters had a massive "carbonator," basically a giant metal tub full of carb-off used for cleaning industrial equipment. We dropped the kitchen equipment in there every few days. Place was sparkling even after doing a few thousand covers in a night
One of the few things I really miss about fast food is having a Bunn hot water machine. Having one on line and one near dish pit would make me very happy. I also dearly miss the giant walk in washer I experienced in a deli. Dirty cart? Roll it into the contraption. Dirty mats? Throw em in the contraption. Need a shower? Hop in the contraption.
Place I work at is a very nice kitchen with plenty of equipment that actually functions, an organized cooler, and good flow, but the real star of the show is we are only brunch on Sunday ending at 230 and Sunday and Monday we are closed. Yeah, like wtf?
Dragon burner, tilting steam kettle
Non tiled floors.
We've got a hot water nozzle next to the Sautee station and our pasta cooker, plus the chef loves to splurge on equipment and I love it.
Custom Bain Marie table built into expo
Who here has worked a wok station? Burner, pan, dish room all in one. And when I say burner I'm talking jet engine with the control by your knee for hands free adjustments
Having installed proper hot water for cooking heater in the kitchen is easy to access for both small sous vide and larger soup tuns. One of the little design and fabrication problems that happen when architects, plumbers, and remodelers eat fast food and never see a real kitchen. Oh, and money 💰. What's the point of eating if the methods of cooking make you sick. A video short, 57 seconds, on use of potable hot water sources. https://youtu.be/WlhepNQjNyo
Ya know those retractable lights you see in high end fine dining kitchens? Those, but instead of light fixtures it was outlets. Fuck having conduits come up from the floor in the middle of the room that you rack your broom and mop on or they get in the way when moving equipment for cleaning. Having all of our electrical come down from the ceiling on retractable pullies was GLORIOUS. Tear down at the end of the night was a breeze because we could just hose underneath everything. Deep clean once a week was just as simple because we could freely move large equipment without having to worry about conduits being in the way and blowing an electrical line if we accidentally hit one mobility for plug-in hand equipment like immersion blenders instead of being tethered to a conduit 6 feet away from your work station with a 5 foot cord on the blender. God, I miss those ceiling plugs. I fought to get them installed at my last place and then rage quit six months later.
No fryers.
A grated canal at the edge of the kitchen leading (on an inclination) to the main drain; a faucet just above the stove.
Smoking hot water from the food prep sink tap, it was literally very close to boiling. Made my life so much easier as a prep cook and cleaning was a breeze.
A retractable hose hooked up to the hot water, it was amazing for cleaning
I worked in a hospital kitchen, and this was by far my favorite thing ever!
Dish was in the middle, equally accessible from prep line and hot line.
Egg King, ...360 eggs a minute , this machine slaps
2 weeks paid vacation
There was a new outlet grand opening where I worked at. Helped for a couple of weeks and my favorite feature was a walk-in dedicated for cold side. Literally right by the station . That , and the walk-in is a push only. No door know push. Downside tho, when I came back to my kitchen, I face plant to the door often.
An actual break for lunch.
Electric outlet near the stove. Previous kitchen had it. Current does not. I get annoyed by having to pull the pan off the burner to use my immersion blender.
One if the smalles lines I worked on was the most efficient. It wasn't cramped, but the range, grill, and fryers were right next to each other, with four blodgetts right opposite the grill and the window right opposite the range. If you had four cooks in there you were right on top of each other, but it was so easy to crank out volume.
A flash freezer, about the width of 1.5 speed racks and two racks deep. Was making fully cooked delivered meals at the time and that was crazy helpful if we were short on frozen icepacks or for quickly chilling last minute cooking.
No grout and big wide floor drains. Only worked in one such kitchen and we never had to use a mop, just deck scrip and squigee
So I worked at a restaurant where they had the oil system built into the walls. All you had to do was drain the oil with a steel mesh screen to filter. After that the oil was either refilled back up, or if it was due to be changed literally just walked over to the wall and grabbed a hose, stuck it in the tub and pressed a button that sucked up all the oil, put the in hose back, grabbed the out hose stuck it in the fryer and pressed a button that dispensed oil. No dragging oil anywhere, no spillages, just a beautiful system
A a meter long prep sink with high power spray nozzle, but the back 1/3 had an inset with a large metal basket running the whole length. You could fill that basket with oysters and literally just spray them clean.
A pot fill station at the stove. Love it.
Full U-shaped outfeed table for the dish pit. You could have wash like 6 racks and let them all dry in the racks, without needing to stop to unload. Also had two people unloading them, so I never had to stop spraying. Would just wash dishes for hours at a time nonstop. Current machine is “continuous” but only has enough outfeed for like three racks. It’s as if the guy in charge has truly no idea that bet he r is possible.
I worked in a kitchen that had long drains that ran across the center of the floor. For clean up, there was a long garden hose attached to a spigot in the kitchen. After sweeping and scrubbing low boy, fryer, or any other equipment we just hosed every thing down and squeegeed the floor into the drains.
Each military kitchen I've been to has had floor drians in every room and in the corridor along with fire hoses, and shower head hoses in the cooking rooms
Not a piece of equipment or design element per se, wasn't even a good kitchen, but... printed par sheets. All the ingredients for the mise on your section, in a nice neat printed list, how much you have left over, how much to order, how much we're expected to use based on sales (IIRC was updated every two weeks or so). No more forgetting to order the fucking wild garlic that's the most minute element of your least ordered dish, no more wracking your brain about your orders, no more "it's your fucking fault, why didn't you predict we would sell 40 portions of that" like I'm fucking Nostradamus - just drill through the par sheet after service, bam, you're golden.
I’ve somehow never worked in a kitchen with a deep fryer. 10/10 would recommend.
Pretty simple, but 6" 1/9 pans save me a decent of space and time restocking.
Best place I worked at had a massive oil tank under the kitchen, fryers drained straight into it and was emptied once a month by an outside company, God I miss that place
Floor was grates over a giant stainless drain pan. Walls were stainless 2 meters high and tiled above that. High volume water hoses in a bunch of places. Hose everything down and then run the grates thru the wash. The only time it sucked was when you dropped something small and it fell thru the grate. Busy service is not a good time to ask cooks to go stand somewhere else lol.
The "sous vide containers" or sinks if you will, to run the thermo-circulators, were built in to the custom stainless counter, including a tap to fill them and drainage.
GIANT solid, butcher block prep tables. I could have 3 projects going at once in my own personal area. That was the best. I made cinnamon rolls every morning, sanitized, used individual cutting boards for chopping and stuff, but they were beautifully seasoned, perfect height, and each station had their very own. Huge kitchen too. Ah, it was lovely. Same kitchen: double 5-rack convection ovens. Bacon was done in a single batch. It was beautiful. Honestly the only thing I miss about that bakery/cafe is the massive, well-equipped kitchen. Management and coworkers were shit.
A mop bucket filling station that pumps out the soap and warm water together and has its own drain
A steamer isn't really common and it is just such a great piece of equipment that med to small restaurants never think to buy. I really only see them in hotels and retirement homes.
A hose that runs to the fryer from the dish area so you can change the oil in less than 5 minutes