TYPICAL KITCHENS IN THE FOOD INDUSTRY: PART 4

Let us look at a specialty restaurant. A term applying to any commercial restaurant that features a special menu. It might be a steakhouse, a seafood restaurant, or one serving continental cuisine, or the best barbecue in town, or home-style cooking. It usually has table service and an ambience that goes with the type of food. The fast-food operation is in a way a specialty restaurant. But its stripped-down service, made easy production, and limited menu place it in a category of its own.

The small specialty restaurant I have chosen (another real place) features extra-good food at modest prices in an atmosphere described as "casual class.” It has 130 seats and serves an average of 250 meals a day.

The kitchen would fit into one corner of one station of the big hotel or hospital kitchen. Its equipment is a mixture of old reliable and shiny knew. It has two stations, cold and hot, and two cooks, one in charge of each station A third staff member works as a prep person under the hot-food cook during pre-preparation time and doubles as dish and pot washer during the service period. On weekends a part-time cook backs up both cooks during the serving period.

I have timed my visit for the dinner hour. In spite of the small staff the tiny kitchen seems full of people. What with a dishwasher and pot sink fitted in along one wall, and waiters coming in and going out, there are few square inches of space unused. But the layout has been well planned, the traffic patterns carefully calculated. The kitchen works.

Everything is ready that can be prepared ahead. A steam table holds hot foods ready for service. The few items cooked to order are done quickly with a minimum of motion. Though the pace is fast, things move smoothly. These cooks are skilled, with several years of practice and training behind them. They have to be experts to keep up with the orders.

In this small operation there is no separate production supervisor. The kitchen staff reports directly to the restaurant manager. The manager knows cooks and cooking firsthand, though she plays no part in the kitchen operations other than to schedule the day's production. She also does the purchasing, plans the menu specials, and supervises the service personnel.

Every specialty restaurant is different in staff and equipment, because its menu is different. Its volume makes a difference too. But its organization will not vary greatly from the pattern of this small restaurant, though there may be more cooks, more helpers, and more stations.

Go To Page: 1 2