Quick Tips for your Temporary Kitchen

If you’re planning a renovation project for your food service concept, listen up! You’re concerned about shutting down for too long. You’re worried about laying your employees off or missing potential revenue. When you can’t or won’t temporarily shut down your business, a temporary kitchen is imperative. Below are some best practices for starting your temporary kitchen.

Load-in

To start, consider how you plan on loading in your food supplier deliveries. Where will they enter and exit the structure? We recommend creating a make-shift loading dock, compacter, and waste area near the building. Because you’re carting so much food in and out of the facility, safety can become a huge concern. Make sure your employees don’t have to resort to throwing boxes everywhere.

Cleaning

Have a plan for you plan to clean the facility. Storage will be tight, so you’ll need to predetermine everything you need to clean the front of house and back of house areas. Know where the items will be stored, and make sure they fit. Using a temporary restaurant doesn’t mean you can get by with lower standards.

Footprint

The footprint of your restaurant, factoring in size and shape is critical for success. You’ll need areas for customers to line-up, receive their food, and sit down to eat. If you’re nixing the front of house all together, and using concession type service, these shouldn’t be major concerns. However, you may benefit from looking at the area and thinking about what it will be like to stand in line. Is there a large tree to provide shade? Do you have a bug problem? How will the experience translate to your customers? Be wary of under-sizing your facility. It can cause big problems down the line.

Buy-in

You must have buy-in from your team. This is the most important tip for transitioning to a temporary restaurant. From servers to kitchen crew, they need to be involved early. When stakeholders aren’t involved from the very beginning, the confusing changes can throw a wrench into your plans.

No matter the reason for renovation, changing your restaurant’s look and feel is an exciting process. Ensuring your temporary kitchen is running smoothly can make or break the transition. For more information about mobile and temporary restaurants, fill out our contact form below. We design, develop, and deploy!