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When Should You Upgrade Your Commercial Appliances?
Admin • August 15, 2020
Running a restaurant isn't easy — or cheap. The costs associated with regular day-to-day operations can make it financially challenging to plan for the replacement of high-dollar equipment. While your employees are certainly your greatest asset, your kitchen equipment usually comes in at a close second. Unfortunately, old or unreliable equipment can hamstring your employees' ability to serve customers.
Knowing when to replace or upgrade your old equipment can be challenging, however. Only you can decide what's right for your kitchen, but below you will find some tips and tricks for recognizing when to replace your kitchen appliances.
1. Degrading Performance
Performance issues typically develop on heating equipment as it ages. Old commercial ranges or griddles may be especially vulnerable to these problems. With gas ranges, you may notice issues with lighting the burners or with flame control. Since precise temperature is one of the primary benefits of cooking with gas, these issues can be especially frustrating for you and your staff.
Steam tables are one piece of heating equipment where you should be especially aware of performance issues. Since the purpose of your steam table is to keep food warm, inadequate temperature control may result in food becoming too hot or reaching dangerously low temperatures. These problems can be especially worrying if you use your steam table for customer self-service.
Any time you notice performance degradation in a piece of equipment, consider your initial capital investment, the age of the machine, and the cost of repairs. Proper food preparation is a matter of safety as well as good taste, so holding on to old, poorly performing equipment is never a good idea. Once the cost of repairs begins to exceed the value of a replacement, it's time to move on.
2. Expanding Needs
No matter how well you try to plan for the future, you will eventually find that your old equipment can no longer meet your restaurant's current needs. Whether you have upgraded your dining room or expanded into takeout or delivery, you must always ensure that your kitchen staff can accommodate your order volume. Prolonged increases in sales are usually a good indication that upgrades are necessary.
When planning to replace equipment for these reasons, it pays to be conservative. If your old equipment has worked well for your kitchen staff, then be sure that the new volume of orders is more than a short-term spike. Once you've established that this new business is here to stay, evaluate both the current needs of your kitchen staff and your future needs.
While you shouldn't plan to overbuy your equipment, choose refrigerators, ranges, and other high-dollar items with future growth in mind. Since these items all represent significant capital expenditures for both equipment and installation, you should plan your purchase to last your business for as long as possible.
3. Workflow Issues
A more subtle class of problems that commercial kitchens face revolve around staff workflow issues. These issues can arise as a result of old or outdated equipment or poor initial kitchen planning. If your staff have problems moving between stations or retrieving ingredients, then your kitchen likely suffers from workflow problems.
Always include your staff in any discussions about potential workflow issues. Attempt to determine if a particular appliance run creates slowdowns or safety concerns, and identify any old equipment in that run that may be worth replacing. If you elect to replace this troublesome equipment, be sure to consider ways that you can improve workflow at the same time.
Working with old, outdated, or poorly performing equipment can frustrate your kitchen staff, slow down your order fulfillment time, and even create safety hazards. Hawkins Commercial Appliance Service Inc. can help you to choose and install new equipment to meet your restaurant's current and future needs. Give us a call
today to schedule a consultation!
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