5 Essential Kitchen Equipment for the Budding Restauranteur
When you run a large, busy restaurant or cafeteria that caters to many customers like university students or office workers, you will need solid and dependable food preparation equipment for your kitchen. This equipment can help to cater to many customers and also increase the speed of the whole process of getting the ingredients and food ready. In a busy kitchen, you need to work fast sometimes and to do the job properly, you need the right equipment. Here are some of the more common equipment no busy kitchen should be without.
🴠1. Knives
Knives are a staple of any kitchen. You need to have many knives available and each knife should be in good condition. It's not always the chef who uses a knife. There will be different stations of food preparation, so there may be one corner where someone is cutting meat and sandwiches for the deli, another person doing pizzas and will use a knife to dice the veggies and so on. Knives have to be in tip top condition and workers can be very particular about their knives. If it's not performing as it should, it can not only waste time, but workers become irate. It's never a good idea for someone with a knife to be irate! There are companies that have contracts with these food businesses where they drop off knives every week or so and take back used knives for sharpening and maintenance. This is a really good service because the knives will always be sharp and perform the way it should.
🴠2. Slicers
Slicers are large machines that are used to cut up meat into really thin slices for use in sandwiches and other specials. These slicers can cut meats incredibly thin. Only a person who is trained and experienced should use these slicers. In fact, it is used in conjunction with a very special steel glove that's cut resistant so that the worker using the slicer remains safe, not only when using the slicer, but also when cleaning it. These gloves are expensive and cost well over a hundred dollars.
Slicers are also used to cut cheese into very thin slices. As you can imagine, being a machine, it is capable of cutting it as uniformly as possible and at a fast speed.
🴠3. Mixers
Mixers are large and heavy machines that sit in one spot in the kitchen, They usually come with all kinds of accessories like whips, batter beater and dough hook. Mixers are used for making dough for bread, pizza and baked items like cookies. It can also be used for other things like making yummy mashed potato. They are heavy and powerful and save a lot of time. This is a major commercial kitchen appliance and it can be more expensive then some cars! However, it's practically impossible to run the business without it.
🴠4. Refrigerated Preparation Table
These metal tables are excellent and convenient as a food preparation area. They are very easy to clean and sanitize. They are also refrigerated, so you can stock up on ingredients. There's also a place at the top to fit in containers which can contain food such as sliced tomatoes, diced onions and peppers, pepperoni, shredded cheese or anything for that matter. These will remain cool when placed there since the fridge is just underneath. It's convenient since everything is right there and there's no need to waste time going back and forth to a walk-in-fridge. Some are also equipped with wheels, so it can be moved to another location if required.
🴠5. French Fry Cutter
Some places may order ready-made frozen french fries while others may prepare them in-house. If your business prefers to make your own from scratch, you will need a strong french fry cutter. These can either be mounted onto a wall or a table so that they remain secure and always in one spot.
Just like a carpenter needs proper tools to do the job well, people in the food industry need the right equipment at their workstations to be productive. This is a fast-paced industry and with the right equipment, it helps to speed along the process because doing everything by hand would take far too long in a large, busy kitchen. It makes things easier and run like clockwork which is what any business would want.