You could compare your kitchen to a car’s engine, as it powers the “vehicle”—your restaurant as a whole. While different engines power luxury cars, utility vehicles and electric cars, they all need regular check-ups to suss out and swap old technologies and worn-out components.
The same idea applies to a restaurant’s “engine” framework, since newer technologies and machinery can optimize the way restaurants in all categories run. Whether a restaurant is a Michelin Star destination, a neighborhood bistro or trendy fast-casual, parts of the kitchen that break down or go obsolete can compromise what drives your cooks’ creativity and, by extension, what the customers are paying for.
“Complete overhauls are rare in our experience,” said Jules Laurey III, director of food service design for Ideation Design Group, whose services include developing functional layout strategies for corporate and franchise restaurant clients. “Studying the space to identify where people walk, where they cross paths, and how long tasks take can help identify areas for improvement. This [process] tends to point to two or three friction points that can be amended rather than tearing apart an entire kitchen.”
Laurey said that the right consultants and providers, like a good mechanic, attentively listen to their operator clients and make careful observations when determining what repairs or upgrades are needed.
“This is critical when selection of equipment or technologies can make a significant difference in speed, accuracy, and profitability,” he added. “Increasingly, kitchen display systems, multifunction cooking appliances, and food safety tools are at the forefront of upgrades.”
Simply put, even when your kitchen “engine” was originally assembled with some of the best parts money could buy at the time, the right service providers and manufacturers can help you readily implement specific things you need to optimize your kitchen in ways that improve efficiency, reliability, and customer satisfaction. While there are no “one-size-fits-all” solutions for a smoothly functioning kitchen, taking a strategic approach to maintenance ensures you can avoid the necessity of a full-on overhaul and have something that specifically works with your restaurant category.
Revving Up Service
Steve Hosey, blending solutions manager at Vitamix Commercial, argues optimization is more about fine-tuning instead of tearing a kitchen down to the studs. The first step is to isolate the kitchen’s station or stations creating the most friction since the most useful upgrades are those removing repeated manual steps and obstacles.
Using Vitamix Commercial products in blending stations as an example, Hosey said a high-performance commercial blender for back-of-house culinary work can support multiple applications such as sauces, dressings, purées, soups and spice grinding, which helps operators get more value from the footprint.
“Small placement decisions can have an outsized effect: Where ingredients are stored, where containers are staged, how close the blender is to a sink or rinse station and whether finished orders can move directly to handoff,” he said. “I encourage teams to watch the station during peak service and count touches, steps and handoffs. Targeted changes are easier to test, plus they’re less disruptive to service and give operators a clearer view of whether the investment is improving throughput. The technology should match the menu and volume, and a feature is only useful if it solves a real workflow problem, reduces training or helps the team produce the same result, shift after shift.”
Time and space are of the essence at all locations of The Dog Haus, whose storefronts and biergartens expanded from L.A. Metro into 13 states, including Illinois, Arizona, Colorado, New York, Texas and Washington State since its 2010 founding in Pasadena, CA. As a result of kitchen updates in multiple locations, COO Garen Khodaverdian pointed out they resulted in overall improvements in kitchen flow and shorter wait times. While The Dog Haus made its mark as a craft-casual concept serving fresh, high-quality food made to order, faster service times have made it more competitive with traditional fast-casual brands without compromising the quality of the product.
“Improved throughput and a stronger bottom line are the goals behind these changes,” said Khodaverdian, who adds that shifting customer preferences toward customized menu items and supply chain volatility reinforced the importance of ingredient consistency and cross-utilization. “We are looking at the entire operation, not simply trying to make one station faster. When the kitchen flows more efficiently, from prep through production, assembly, expo and handoff, the benefits can extend throughout the restaurant. That approach can create greater operational efficiency while still giving guests the variety and customization they’re looking for.”
Greg Proechel, COO of the Tampa-based Tastes Pretty Good restaurant and hospitality group, said that the biggest circumstances that prompted the company to reconfigure layouts at their restaurants are twofold: more efficient workflow and lowered overhead. In a similar fashion to the Dog Haus, he and the management team opted not to overhaul the Taste Pretty Good restaurant kitchens en masse, but instead shift things around, increase P-mix efficiencies, and control pressure points by relieving workflow on any given section of the kitchen, based on the individual needs of a given restaurant.
“We’d rather maximize internal efficiency than pass increased costs onto our guests,” he said. “It’s constantly on our minds when building new spaces and figuring out how to work at the level we expect by making things as streamlined as possible. We need specific upgrades at each location, ranging from a higher-BTU pasta cooker to reduce lag during busy periods, to automating crostini toasting so our chefs can focus on their stations. We added binchotan charcoal to our solid fuel on the wood-burning grill for more consistent temperature and quicker flame rebound. We changed the surface area of some cooking equipment to increase output per chef, helping alleviate increased workflow as our business grows. On the non-technical side, we take a close look at our P-mix and pressure points so no single station becomes a bottleneck.”
Built for Speed & Performance
Izzy Kharasch, veteran restaurant consultant and Hospitality Works founder, also sees the overall goal of a kitchen update being two-fold. His first step involves achieving a more efficient design combined with better equipment in a client’s kitchen, allowing labor to be streamlined by 5 percent. The other is to reconfigure the design to handle more guests and orders, thereby driving more revenue. He also believes some food trends will influence kitchen design.
“People who are on GLPs, for example, are eating differently, and the menus need to reflect those changes,” he said. “Therefore, a kitchen needs to be designed with those considerations. Even though the supply chain is substantially better since COVID impacted the industry, the supply chain and kitchen redesign figures in more storage to the property so fewer deliveries need to be made to ensure better end products.”
While shifts in customer dietary needs and food preferences need to change with the times, surfaces and table tops also need updates to expedite the food prep process. John Boos & Co., America’s oldest manufacturer of premium kitchen equipment and butcher blocks, is no stranger to this with a client roster that includes Dave's Hot Chicken and Lucas Oil Stadium (home of the Indiana Colts). Jennie Coon, director of the firm’s Foodservice Sales and Consultant Services, said that one thing to consider early in a kitchen update is taking two or three unnecessary steps out of the process of making cocktails behind the bar and prepping ingredients and meals in a restaurant’s back-of-house.
“A prep cook should not have to cross the kitchen repeatedly to reach a sink or shelf, and the dish team needs soiled and clean dish tables arranged so racks move through the washing process without backtracking,” Coon affirms. “It’s about designing stainless equipment around the workflow instead of making employees work around the equipment. The same thing applies to prep and work tables, compartment and hand sinks, dish tables, wall shelves, wall cabinets and other stainless equipment—putting the right piece in the right place to support the way people actually work.”
At the Dog Haus, Khodaverdian emphasizes that kitchen flow, throughput and speed of service are always front of mind, with a shared mindset that every second and step counts. As the order channels and business have evolved, the management continues to evaluate how its kitchens can operate more efficiently while maintaining product quality and consistency. This means looking for unnecessary steps, inefficient movements, congestion between stations, and delays in assembly, expo or handoff that can be eliminated without affecting the product that’s a restaurant’s biggest draw.
“These are ongoing evaluations rather than a response to one specific problem,” Khodaverdian points out. “Our restaurants need to manage dine-in, takeout, delivery, and catering orders, often simultaneously. We not only upgraded equipment such as grills and fryers, but also evaluated kitchen tools that can improve product consistency, throughput, and refine how our teams execute each item the same way every time. We’re also continuing to work with our POS provider to improve how information is presented to the kitchen, refining station routing, screen flow, and color coding so team members can more easily identify what should be prioritized. These may seem like small upgrades, but they reduce confusion and improve execution during high-volume periods.”
Zhigang Wang of Las Vegas-based Ohjah Japanese Steakhouse realized that as that takeout and delivery made up a much larger share of restaurant sales, they can no longer be treated as an afterthought. Changes that ended up making the biggest difference included the creation of a dedicated takeout station with direct access to the kitchen window. It prevents packing and pickup activity from interfering with dine-in service.
“Separating these two workflows helped the back-of-the-house and front-of-the-house teams stay organized, especially during rushes,” he details. “At the same time, portable POS technology has changed how the front-of-the-house team works. Servers can enter orders and complete transactions from almost anywhere, so restaurants don't need to rely as heavily on fixed POS stations. That gives both employees and guests more flexibility and allows us to use the space more efficiently.”
Kharasch said the focus for one Italian pizza/pasta concept client was on the hot line. Moving specific pieces around and swapping older units for more modern ones helped lower the labor cost and get the food out of the kitchen quicker. When the client’s restaurants became busier more recently, his team advised its decisionmakers to add a smaller, more efficient kitchen that would handle the inside dining while an existing one would be dedicated to carryout orders. While the redesign improved efficiency, it also helped lower the cost of labor.
“One specific unit will be a fryer unit that is on a timer and does not need a person to be at that station while the food is cooking,” he said. “This also means that a current staff member will be able to monitor two stations rather than just one. Also, the fryer has an internal system that will filter the fryer oil twice per day, which extends the life of the oil by two days. This means that over the period of a year, it will save about one months’ worth of oil.”
Contributions from Your “Pit Crew”
Vitamix’sHosey is a proponent of giving back-of-house team members working the stations opportunities to provide input because they see problems that are invisible on a floor plan. They can tell management where prep backs up, which ingredients are reached for most often, and where cleaning or changeovers slow the line. Front-of-house staff, meanwhile, see what the guest sees or hears, so their input can see the impact of a kitchen’s makeup as well.
“I like to evaluate a layout during an actual rush rather than in an empty kitchen,” Hosey said. “Watch the movement, then ask your team what they would change if they could move one thing. Their answer is often more useful than a broad redesign brief. Leadership still has to balance those observations with food safety, utilities, maintenance and budget, but staff input is essential to making the new workflow practical.”
Laurey observed that when a client wants to reconfigure the layout for optimal workflow, it’s not uncommon for his staff volume to have changed. “An operator might build a kitchen layout around a few team members, but if staff increases, the layout needs to change to accommodate more people. Rent and construction costs can also lead restaurant teams to reconfigure layouts when the same output needs a slightly smaller footprint [if the real estate is shrinking or being scaled back].”
According to Kharasch, kitchen design should not only be determined by how many people take up the space, but also what they do there. Therefore, the only way a redesign can be successful is by including both staffers that work the kitchen and the front of the house. The insights and suggestions of the cooks and chefs is imperative because their suggestions typically drive overall efficiency. Those from front-of-house staff count as they have to pick up the food from the kitchen and can weigh in on how to do things better and get food to the guest faster and hotter.
Along those lines, Wang believes that his restaurants’ front-of-house and back-of house teams play an important role in pinpointing what changes had to be made. “Their feedback helped us create a more practical workflow,” he said. “We also considered experience from the customer's point of view. As the front-of-house staff are trained to accommodate and service all take out customers and delivery workers. In other words, treat the takeout customer same as dine in guests to maximize all the potential of business.”
This input from Wang’s team led to upgrading practical elements of packing area, including worktables, condiment storage, and packing supplies. A packer-facing display allows the employee handling takeout orders to see info clearly and immediately and made for a smoother handoff from the kitchen to the packing station. The result? Reducing the need for employees to repeat steps or pass information back and forth.
“We continuously evaluate where team members are taking unnecessary steps, crossing paths, or waiting on another station,” agreed The Dog Haus’ Khodaverdian. “The goal is to make the kitchen more intuitive, so the work naturally progresses from preparation to cooking, assembly, quality control and final handoff. Leadership can design a process on paper, but the restaurant team determines whether it actually works during a busy shift. Involving team members also creates stronger adoption because they understand why a change is being made and have a voice in improving the process.”
The Customer is Always Right
Khodaverdian also insists that listening to Dog Haus guests is extremely important, even if they don’t comment directly on equipment or kitchen systems.
“Whether the feedback is positive or negative, understanding what our guests think and how they feel can only help us improve,” he said. “If something inside the kitchen isn’t working efficiently, the guest will ultimately experience the result. Guest feedback, combined with ordering behavior, helps us identify opportunities around speed, accuracy, food quality, and the overall pickup and handoff experience. The continued growth of dine-in, takeout, delivery and catering also influences how we think about packaging, quality control, and order flow.”
While guests won’t tell you the “reach-in” is in the wrong place, Laurey said his clients’ customers will tell them if the wait was too long or if something is off about their order. “As designers and architects, our job is to anticipate or translate potential client bottlenecks and difficulties into layout and equipment decisions that enhance flow and improve output,” he explains. “With the right layout adjustments, we can make long-term changes that prevent negative customer feedback.”
“While we don’t ask the guests for their input, we look at the top five to ten complaints and base our designs on [some of that] information,” Kharasch said. “If a consistent customer complaint is that the food is coming out cold, we look at every aspect of the issue and determine if the equipment is in the right place? Are the hot lights that keep the food warm on the pickup counter too high or not covering enough space, or is the pickup area for the servers designed in such a way that the staff can pick up quickly and get to the table.”
Resulting benefits, according to Proechel, add up to an improved guest experience, higher per-night guest counts, higher check averages, increased overall revenue, better staff retention, improved staff morale, and more positive reviews. “Time is one of the few things we don't control, so we're always working to limit the small delays that add up to real savings and efficiency over a shift. If guests are consistently disappointed by wait times, we treat that as a specific case of dysfunction and move quickly to fix it. Fortunately, that doesn't happen at our locations, thanks to our daily efficiency standards, communication, and detailed workflow protocols.”
“Employees know who is responsible for each stage of an order, and that helped us improve speed and accuracy while giving the team more capacity to handle takeout and delivery orders during peak periods,” said Wang on the impact of customer feedback. “It also supports profitability by reducing errors, remakes and wasted food. Just as important, the new workflow creates a more consistent experience for guests.”
From Hosey’s standpoint, customer feedback often shows up as an operational signal before it becomes a design brief. Guests may not say, “Move the blender six feet,” but they will notice a long wait, or inconsistent texture. In an open kitchen or bar, the guest experience also matters when selecting where equipment sits and whether a sound-enclosed solution is appropriate. “A [customer] complaint tells you where to look, but timing the process and watching the station helps determine whether the problem is placement and training, the recipe or the equipment,” he said.
Coon observed that in the current industry environment, there’s another part of the return on a kitchen revision investment that matters when focusing on specific operational problems rather than the cost and disruption of a complete renovation.
“The real return is often the accumulation of a lot of small efficiencies,” she said. “If I save a bartender a few steps on something they do hundreds of times during a shift, that becomes meaningful. The same is true when a cook can move directly from a prep table to a sink and nearby storage. [We are] asking the same [kitchen] footprint to do more, putting even more importance on using every inch of space wisely and selecting the right pieces based on what that particular operator serves. I think the best solution comes when you bring together what the operator is trying to accomplish, a designer’s expertise and the experience of the people who actually work at the underbar, prep and warewashing stations.”
AI: Becoming standard equipment?
Restaurateurs and professional kitchen design experts we spoke with for this report have differing views on how AI can influence kitchen updates:
- Izzy Kharasch, Hospitality Works: “AI will play a large role in automation in the future, although it is already helping operators become more efficient with programs that help them determine how much food to prep, what to order and where food is being wasted. It has also aided management in putting together schedules for production that are more efficient than the current working models.”
- Laurey, Ideation Design Group: “Technology must be planned into the workflow, not bolted onto it. As designers, we can utilize AI in the gathering and analysis of data and information we use in areas such as equipment performance comparisons and code research. When we leverage AI efficiency and divert the time saved into the creative process, we can deliver better designs to our clients and guests.”
- Garen Khodaverdian, The Dog Haus: “AI and automation were not the starting point for our kitchen improvements. We first focus on developing a strong operating process, and then we evaluate whether technology can eliminate repetitive work, reduce friction, or help our teams make better decisions. We’ll continue monitoring new capabilities and where appropriate, testing and analyzing them to determine what can provide meaningful value for our restaurants, team members and guests.”
- Jennie Coon, John Boos & Co.: “Technology can help make the operation smarter, but good design [and] physical workflow still have to make sense. An automated dish machine will not solve the whole problem if the soiled dish table, pre-rinse area, clean dish table and rack storage do not support a smooth flow. Putting the right functions within reach, and making each station flow properly is every bit as important to efficiency.”
- Zhigang Wang, Ohjah Japanese Steakhouse: “The goal is not to replace the personal side of hospitality, but to remove unnecessary steps so employees can spend more time helping guests.”
- Greg Proechel, Tastes Pretty Good: “We don't deny AI can help with data aggregation, but we rely on human emotion and instinct for guest-facing decisions.”
- Steve Hosey, Vitamix Commercial: “Kitchen teams are incorporating more customization, trending flavors and functional ingredients in menus while trying to control inventory and waste. Flexible equipment and modular prep help teams balance those competing demands. It also gives operators ways to use seasonal or frozen ingredients and adjust when availability or pricing changes, but the layout has to support that flexibility.”