How to Organize a Restaurant Kitchen
Whether you own a large, bustling restaurant or a small, quiet pub, taking proper care of the kitchen is essential to business operations. In addition to routine cleaning and equipment maintenance, it’s also important to make sure everything is arranged and ordered properly. If you’re not sure how to go about it, this guide on how to organize a restaurant kitchen will give you some ideas to enhance productivity, efficiency and safety.
Organizing Storage Space
1. Keep Small Gadgets in Reach
When learning how to organize a restaurant kitchen, one of the things you should do is make small tools more easily accessible. Although there are many ways to do this, hanging them where they’re used is one of the most effective. This will keep your cooks from having to rummage through cabinets or shelves to find small items, freeing up time to focus on food prep. Some of the utensils or cookware you should consider hanging within easy reach are:
Storing small items where they’re easily accessible is important for your bar, too. Everything from cocktail napkins and straws to corkscrews and rimmers should be within reach on a shelf underneath the counter. This not only creates a smoother operation when preparing drinks, but it also helps get beverages to the customer quickly.
2. Create Designated Stations
Instead of placing equipment in your kitchen haphazardly, it’s a good idea to group similar pieces together. Besides helping staff members transition between tasks more quickly, creating specific areas for certain types of units will also help you manage inventory and reduce clutter. If you’re not sure what the designated areas should be, here are some ideas:
- The Prep and Baking Station – This is where you would do everything from mixing and cutting to rolling and kneading. That means there should be an ample amount of counter space, work tables, sinks and easy storage for essentials.
- The Hot Station – This zone should house all your cooking equipment, such as fryers, grills, ranges and warmers. Keeping these units in a separate space not only simplifies the cooking process, but it also prevents grease and heat from wearing out your dishwashers and refrigeration units.
- The Cold Station – The area should house your freezer and refrigerators, whether they’re walk-in or reach-in models. Make sure to keep this zone at a modest distance from your hot-side equipment. If they’re too close, the heat could cause your refrigeration units to run at an improper temperature. Also, it increases the chances of large grease buildups from damaging the condenser coils.
- The Cleaning Station – This spot should be designated for cleaning dishes, pots, pans and utensils. Naturally, the space should have multiple sinks and dishwashers as well as shelving units to hold everything from scrubbing pads and brushes to soaps and detergents.
Other small stations can be added to your kitchen, depending on its size. Consider designated areas for desserts, salads and plating for an even smoother and more efficient operation. You also can split your prep and baking station into two zones if you have a larger space.
3. Use Open Shelves & Racks
Even though traditional shelves and cabinets with doors help keep dust off pots, cans and other items, they can make it difficult to find items quickly. If your staff members are tired of rummaging through closed units in search of what they need, consider more open shelving options, such as plastic shelves and wire racks.
While large shelving units will likely provide most of your storage space needs, don’t forget about wall-mounted options, too. Placing a few shelves over countertops or sinks can free up space for prep and cleaning while keeping frequently used items in easy reach.
The benefits of open storage space apply to refrigerated units as well. Instead of solid-door refrigerators and freezers, consider glass-door models so that operators can see what’s inside without having to open the unit. Larger establishments may benefit from walk-in coolers and freezers as well, the ample shelving options making storing and finding items fast and easy.
4. Structure Your Organization
If you’re going to change the way you organize your restaurant kitchen on a macro scale, don’t forget to manage small items efficiently as well. For example, if you designate a few shelves for baking sheets and another for pizza pans, labeling the areas with small signs can be a good way to avoid confusion as to what goes where.
In addition, don’t be afraid to use plastic containers or wire baskets to hold small items so that they don’t get lost. Be sure to utilize drawer organizers and shelf dividers to help group like items together, as well as can racks and ingredient bins to keep inventory arranged neatly and within easy reach.
5. Store Knives Safely
Knives are some of the most useful–and dangerous–tools in a commercial kitchen, so it’s important to store them properly. From magnetic holders to storage blocks, there are many ways to keep sharp tools both easily accessible and safely secured at the same time. Wherever you put your knives, make sure they can’t be bumped into or knocked over easily so that you don’t have a bunch of sharp objects crashing down onto whatever’s below.
Additionally, remember to clean and maintain your knives regularly. Although cleaning thoroughly after each use or sharpening the blades when they get dull may seem like insignificant tasks, they can go a long way in lowering the risk of foodborne illnesses and improving food prep efficiency.
Storing Foods Safely
6. Assign Food Storage Areas
In addition to creating equipment stations, designating specific storage areas for different types of inventory can go a long way to organizing your restaurant kitchen as well. When doing so, make sure to follow food storage guidelines to extend your inventory’s shelf life and minimize the risk of foodborne illness.
For non-perishable foods like rice, pasta and canned goods, set aside a dry storage area that’s out of direct sunlight and away from heat sources. When organizing foods in a refrigerated unit, put cooked items or those that are normally eaten raw, like greens and vegetables for salads, on shelves above foods that need to be cooked like raw meat. By storing foods that don’t need to be cooked above those that do, you’ll greatly reduce the risk of juices dripping down and causing cross-contamination.
7. Organize Your Commercial Refrigeration Units: The “First In, First Out” Method
When it comes to commercial kitchen organization, managing inventory in refrigerated units properly is one of the most important aspects. Even though there are many ways to keep track of what you have in stock, the “First In, First Out” or FIFO method is the best if you want to not only improve the efficiency of your units but also ensure the freshness of your ingredients.
The FIFO concept is simple: when you add more items to your existing inventory, bring the old items forward and place the new items behind them so that you encourage kitchen staff to use older items first. By ensuring quick turnover of older items, your establishment will use its perishable items more efficiently, reducing the amount of items that have to be thrown out because they’re past the expiration date.
8. Label Foods with Important Information
To make implementing the FIFO inventory management system a little bit easier, it’s a good idea to label foods with the purchase, delivery and expiration dates for quick reference. If you take foods like rice and pasta out of their original bags and put them into food storage containers, make sure they’re clearly identified so that there’s no confusion.
Don’t forget to identify items with common allergens, too. By labeling foods with ingredients like dairy and nuts, you’ll greatly reduce the chance of accidental contamination, keeping your customers safe from potentially life-threatening reactions.
Extra Restaurant Commercial Kitchen Organization Tips
Some simple tips to follow when organizing your restaurant kitchen include:
- Grouping items together
- Store things like utensils where they are being used
- Put your most used items in plain view
- Declutter the kitchen every year