Kitchen design trends

Nation's Restaurant News, August 26, 1985

Some restaurant chains prefer to leave the details of time-and-motion to the staff at each unit, however. "We supply our units with detailed menu implementation books, including recipes and photos,' says Jodie Corley-Hughes, a spokesman for Dallas-based S&A Restaurants. "But the actual arrangement of equipment in the kitchen and designation of who does what is left to our kitchen managers.'

The chain has a kitchen manager in each unit, responsible only for the back-of-the-house. New products and new equipment undergo physical demos at each unit. This system of decision-making at the unit level is good for both morale and efficiency, maintains Corley-Hughes. "They're the ones who stand over the open burner,' she says.

But along with increased scrutiny of the cooking process, designers are evaluating other elements in the kitchen, especially those that relate to maintenance and safety.

One major maintenance problem, slippery floors, continues to plague many restaurant kitchens. Many designers use quarrry tile but advise application of antislip solutions.

For wall surfaces, though, one increasingly recommended solution is fiberglass paneling. "It looks good and is almost indestructible,' says Collier. "It's very thin and not affected by heat or water. And, of course, it can be scrubbed down.'

Fire prevention is another major area of concern in today's kitchen design.

"We are using ground-fault protectors on the outside of all our buildings and on some electrical appliances,' says McKinney. "And we are specifying thermal overloads for all fluorescent fixtures.' The protectors, a highly sensitive circuit breaker, help prevent fires, as do the overloads, which are essentially bimetallic strips built into a transformer.