Key Restaurant Equipment for a Fast-Casual Restaurant
September 11, 2018Fast-casual dining has changed how America eats and has impacted what people expect in terms of convenience, price, and food quality.
Generally, fast-casual food is affordable and higher-quality than pure fast food. It’s a step above a McDonald’s, without the price or time commitment of a sit-down family style restaurant.
If you’re interested in getting in on this trend, discover what key restaurant equipment you need to look for.
Choosing Your Food Concept
Of course, before you can decide on restaurant equipment, you need to decide what food you’re going to serve. There’s honestly no limit – fast casual can serve everything from barbecue to wings to sandwiches to Asian cuisine.
As you think through you options, maybe you already know what food you have a passion for. Whether you do or not, do some market research in your area. What fast casual restaurants already exist? What do they serve?
Finding a hole in the market, or a unique way to present a food that other restaurants serve, will help you stand out and be more successful.
Getting the Right Cooking Equipment
The first priority as you select restaurant equipment is getting the gear you need to cook the food you’ve chosen.
Consider equipment that includes:
- A grill or griddle
- Fryers
- An oven and stovetop
- Broiler
- Prep table
- Specialty equipment for specific food if needed
Many fast casual restaurants are reasonably large, so you may well have a full-size kitchen. This will allow you to fit all of the equipment you need into the space without having to compromise.
Refrigeration and Storage
Once you’ve gotten your cooking restaurant equipment, it’s time to think about refrigeration and storage.
This will also vary according to the food you serve and the space you have, but you can expect to need items like a refrigerator, freezer, and cabinet space. If you’re concerned about cost, don’t be afraid to check out high-quality used equipment!
Most fast casual restaurants use disposable dishware and cutlery, so you won’t have to worry about managing a dishwasher for those items. However, your pans and cooking dishware will need cleaning. You can use a dishwasher or have your employees handwash items in a large sink.
You’ll need storage for your disposable dishware, cooking pans, and other equipment. If you have the opportunity, plan your layout so that the storage is well-balanced with the cooking equipment and your staff are able to reach what they need easily.
Provide Great Quality Quickly and Easily
Finally, think about where you’ll source your food and ingredients. Many fast casual locations do very well because they offer a higher quality of food without patrons having to wait a long time or pay significantly more.
However, as Chipotle can tell you, having the right suppliers for your high-quality ingredients is vital if you don’t want to make customers sick.
Focus on delivering great quality quickly and affordably, pursue a unique concept, and you’ll be setting yourself up for success.
Let Us Help You Get the Restaurant Equipment You Need!
Setting up a restaurant – or renovating one – is a lot of work. You need a partner who can help you find the restaurant equipment you’re looking for quickly and easily.
It pays to have good suppliers. We’ve been helping Little Rock restaurant owners for many years, and we can help you secure exactly what you need as well.
Contact us for more information today!
Kitchen Equipment: Choosing the Right Cutting Board
Every kitchen, from a food truck to a large restaurant, needs cutting boards. From vegetables to bread to meat and fish, your chefs and cooks have to chop things every day. Have you put a lot of thought into this important piece of kitchen equipment? Like many other...
Catering to Generation Z
As time marches on, we continue to have new generations arising behind the ones we’ve already named. Most recently everyone has been focused on Millennials, whose tech-savvy and focus on experiences over things have shifted the face of every industry. Now, there’s a...
4 Ways to Keep Your Restaurant Employees Engaged
You can have everything you need to run an amazing restaurant – a great menu, incredible chef, the best location, perfect pricing, and top-of-the-line kitchen equipment. But even with all of that, you won’t succeed if your employees are disengaged and unprofessional....
Kitchen Fun : Food and the Oscars
Hollywood’s biggest night was February 24th, 2019, and was it ever a show. There were stars, glitz, glamour, and amazing outfits everywhere. There were also cameras catching every moment, from the red carpet to the after-parties. What happened at the show and after...
4 Keys to Successful Commercial Kitchen Design
If you’re opening a new restaurant or renovating your existing kitchen, you probably already have some ideas about how it should look. However, it’s important to look beyond your own ideas and understand the keys to good design in general. This will help you...
Bring Together Your Back and Front of House
Does your restaurant feel like a simmering battle between the back of house (BOH) and front of house (FOH)? Or do both units get along famously? If your restaurant is like many, you find yourself somewhere in the middle. Rarely do you have an all-out war, but...
Commercial Kitchen Fun: Cooking With Mustard
One of the things that make owning a restaurant so fun is the ability to be creative with your menu. With the help of your chef and cooks, you can come up with some really fun dishes to serve. To get your imagination going, we’re going to share some fun dishes that...
Drive Traffic to Your Restaurant From Instagram
You have a lot of restaurant equipment that you need to make your location run smoothly. You might think about your point-of-sale system, refrigeration units, cooking equipment, and more. But what about Instagram? That’s right, a social media platform can be one of...
Handling Theft in Your Convenience Store
Running a convenience store is challenging to say the least. You need to staff it, but not with too many people. Then again, too few and you have a lot of problems – including theft. There are three groups that can be responsible for product and money loss in your...
Kitchen Equipment Spotlight: How Clean is Your Coffee Pot?
If you were going to rank kitchen equipment based on how much work it does, the humble coffee pot has to be near the top. In almost every restaurant, people order coffee with their meal or dessert. The problem is that because the coffee pot is working so hard, it...
Should You Add a Food Truck to Your Restaurant?
If your restaurant is doing well, you might be thinking about opening a second location. After all, that’s usually the next step when it’s time to expand, right? Before you jump in, though, consider another option. Maybe having a food truck would be a better choice....
Kitchen Equipment Spotlight: How to Maintain a Commercial Freezer
Your commercial freezer can be a lifeline for your restaurant. Safe food storage is vital, and a high-quality freezer is essential kitchen equipment. However, a freezer is only as good as the maintenance that goes into it. Without proper care, your freezer will become...
Take Advantage of Your Customer’s Technology
Some restaurant owners hate seeing customers snapping photos of food – it means that the food isn’t eaten at its best, and sometimes it’s a sign of a table that’s going to be slow to turn over. Then there are other owners and managers who see an opportunity. The truth...
How to Reduce Turnover at Your Restaurant
Having the right employees can make or break your restaurant. You can have the best food and kitchen supplies, but tension in the back of the house can cause delays, poor morale, and even the loss of key staff. You can have a beautiful dining room, but surly wait...
Should Your Commercial Kitchen Consider Catering?
As a business owner, it’s important to always be looking for new ways to grow your business. There are a lot of ways to do this, and one of the most common for many restaurants is catering. Of course, catering changes how your commercial kitchen runs a lot of the...