Common kitchen gaffes: when you're poorly informed during kitchen planning, communication isn't all that breaks down

Nation's Restaurant News, Sept 1, 2003

Of course, having operators and consultants involved from day one doesn't always work. Steinberg tells the tale of a recent disaster involving an on-site kitchen being installed on an upper floor of an office building. "Shortly after we went on line, we discovered that there was water leaking to the floor below," says Steinberg. "We actually had a couple of small floods. The problem stemmed from the fact that the foodservice management company had changed foodservice directors during the kitchen construction." A pulper was supposed to have been installed in the kitchen, along with one in the dish-room. During "value engineering," the process whereby projects are evaluated to ensure that they are cost-effective, the kitchen pulper was removed from the design.

However, the new foodservice director wasn't informed of the decision. "It turned out that staff were dumping garbage and grease down the drain, and it was creating the water problem," says Steinberg. And that, he says, leads to another cost- and embarrassment-saving tip: Especially in buildings where the restaurant or cafeteria shares space with office workers or other businesses, "make sure that you are fully sealing and caulking under heat registers and that you thoroughly finish all wall surfaces to prevent leakage."