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Drawings, Section Layouts, & Plans
Essential to acknowledge before you draw any project:
1. Understand Your Concept, Cuisine & Menu
Before If you’re contemplating designs and have not yet established your menu, or at the very least, determined what cuisine you’ll be serving, you’re getting a bit ahead of yourself.
Understanding your menu is a critical first step to assessing the needs of your kitchen. There’s no such thing as a generic kitchen that will work for every food service operation. Sure, there are certain staples of commercial kitchen design you’ll likely include no matter what, such as prep tables and washing stations, but the equipment you use and the way in which you arrange it will have a lot to do with the food you plan to serve.
This is a good time to begin involving your chef or food service team too, if you haven’t done so already. He or she will have a good idea of what sort of configuration and equipment will work best for the menu. Since they’re the ones who’ll be working in the kitchen each day, it’s important they have input in how it will be designed.
2. Understand Your Local Codes & Regulations
You could design the best commercial kitchen in the world, perfectly configured for your exact needs. This would all be for naught, however, if you didn’t take your local codes and regulations into consideration.
Organizations such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Food and Drug Administration and your state’s Department of Public Health set strict standards for food storage, safety, preparation, disposal, etc. Codes vary between states, counties and even cities, so it is important to familiarize yourself with these before starting your design—even if you’ve designed commercial kitchens elsewhere.
3. Understand The Available Spaces & Suitability
Measure it out.
Understand exactly what you’re working with. Taking these measurements before you begin designing will make it easier in the long run.
Keep in mind:
It’s not just square footage. Knowing where windows, doors and electrical outlets are is also important, especially when it comes time to design your kitchen’s workflow.
Consider the subject while planning to draw, design, and develop your food & beverage Unit:
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Space Efficiency
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Work Flow Efficiency
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Flexibility & Modularity
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Sanitation, and Hygiene
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Management, and Supervision
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Energy Efficient & Cost Effective
1. Space Efficiency
Simplicity and space efficiency are all about making the most out of a limited amount of space. Doing this successfully comes just as much from knowing what your kitchen doesn’t need, as understanding what it does need.
Communicate with your chef on what will be necessary for your menu. That way, you won’t be sacrificing valuable space that could be put to better use.
2. Work-Flow Efficiency
When you design a kitchen with flow in mind, your goal is to lay it out in the way that most accommodates the movements taking place inside. When the flow of everything from kitchen staff to raw ingredients is moving in a logical direction, it can greatly reduce confusion and accidents.
Generally, all food service kitchens have a flow of activities that includes some form of the following steps:
Delivery > Storage > Food Preparation > Cooking > Service > Cleaning
3. Flexibility & Modularity:
Menus change. Your kitchen should be able to modify along with it. Whether you have daily specials, alter your menu based on what ingredients are seasonally available, or simply update it to reflect evolving tastes or cooking techniques, your kitchen should be able to keep up.
Consider including shelving units, racks and prep tables with wheels so that you can adjust the arrangement of your kitchen when your food service needs change.
4. Sanitation & Hygiene
Sanitation is a crucial part of maintaining the health and safety of your food service operation. While this is a function that rests mainly in the hands of a diligent and well-trained staff, there are ways of designing your kitchen with sanitation needs in mind that can make cleaning much easier in the long run.
Pay close attention to your local codes and regulations when considering sanitation, as most will include a number of standards, such as how far food prep stations must be from waste disposal stations, and where hand washing sinks must be placed.
5. Management & Supervision
Management, and Supervision may not be an important factor for a small-scale food service operation to consider. For kitchens intended for larger staffs, an executive chef may have a greater need to oversee the work being done.
If supervision is a priority, you may want to consider designs with fewer walls or partitions, for unobstructed views.
6. Energy Efficient & Cost Effective