There are a lot of decisions that need to be made early on in the process of opening a restaurant startup. That includes figuring out things such as “how much room in my kitchen is there for the restaurant equipment?” Too often people forget that step, which can lead to problems. That’s why today’s tip from One Fat Frog is to carefully measure your kitchen and entire restaurant before buying equipment.
We’ve all made this mistake before. I recently moved into a new house and after lugging the sofa around, I realized there was no possible way to fit it in the room where I wanted it. I had a nice couch and an ugly couch and I wanted the larger ugly couch in the back bedroom and the nice couch in the living room. However, there was no way for the ugly couch to fit through the doorway into the bedroom. As a result, I now have a hideous couch in my living room that is covered by a slightly less ugly slip cover.
I was able to compensate for the problem and make the best of it, but you can’t do that with your restaurant. If you buy a range that won’t fit in the kitchen, you can’t just put it in the dining room and cook in the middle of the dining area. That’s why you need to take careful measurements ahead of time. Figure out how much space you have in the kitchen so you know how much equipment you need to buy (you don’t want to buy too little or too much).
You also need to make sure the equipment will fit in the doorway. More than once One Fat Frog has delivered equipment to a new restaurant only to find that the entrance to the restaurant was too snug. “Looks like we’re going to have to remove the doors.”
There is more to know than how large the kitchen is and what size the doorways are, though. You also need to consider electrical outlets or gas lines. How many are in the kitchen? How far apart are they? If you fill the kitchen, will you be able to hook everything up? If you need to bring an electrician out, it’s easier to do that before your kitchen is full of equipment.
All of this goes back to the same idea that the more prepared you are, the smoother things will go. We’re happy to take measurements of all of our equipment, compare it to your floor plan, and help you figure out what you need. If you help us do that legwork, things will run a lot more smoothly for you. And for first time restaurant owners, any time you can make things run smoothly, that’s a win.
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