Restaurant Equipment and Fixtures

Have you ever thought of starting your own restaurant?

After deciding what kind of restaurant you want and the menu that you’d likely serve, you’d have to write down the things that you’d need to make sure you don’t miss out on anything and it would be easy to make out the budget. Below is a list of equipments and fixtures, from the very basic, to some suggested optional ones which you may consider on adding if you’d be doing some specialty menu.

We have to start off with your cooking area – the kitchen. Depending on the menu you plan to serve, you might need to add a few more extras.

Food Cooking Equipment – Again, depending on your menu, you might consider including one or more of the following:

Char broiler
Corn Carousel
Fryer
Griddle
Hotdog Roller Grill
Oven
Popcorn popper
Pressure cooker
Roaster
Rice cooker
Rice warmer
Sandwich press/maker
Steamer
Stove
Toaster

Food Preparation Equipment – in considering these equipments, think about how often you’d be using them to prepare the food you’d serve. If you’d be starting big with a Dim Sum restaurant, you might consider making your own noodles. However, if you’d be serving a few noodle dishes only, then it would be practical to buy ready-made noodles. The same goes for ground meat, grated cheese, and mashed potatoes. A food processor could actually do most of the job and some machines sold in the market can serve multi-purposes.

Food processor
Blender/mixer
Juice Extractor
Meat grinder
Cheese grater
Potato Peeler/Masher
Noodle machine
Ice Crusher

Food Storage Equipments - These kind of equipments can be categorized into three- cold, and warm storage and the ingredient bin.

For cold storage, there are various options and again would vary with the need. Basic ones would be a freezer and a refrigerator but even that has variations. So here’s the list of them all:

Refrigerator: Walk-in, Work Top, Under- Counter, Upright, Solid Door, Glass Door
Freezer: Walk-in, Work Top, Under- Counter, Upright, Solid Door, Glass Door, Chest
Ice containers: Ice Caddy, Ice Chest, Ice Maker
Deli case
Back Bar Cooler
Salad Bar

For Warm Storage: - variation would depend if it operates by gas or electric

Proofer
Steam table
Hot food Merchandiser
Patty Warmer
Rice Warmer
Soup Warmer
Sushi Warmer

Ingredient Bin – big containers that can be used for storing large amounts of ingredients, especially the dry ones such as flour, rice, milk, etc.

Utensil Storage – You’d have to consider getting a good storage for your plates and other table top utensils and make sure that you’d be able to keep out pests like rats and roaches away from them.

Dish Caddy
Dish Storage Table
Shelving and Rack

Ventilation – Good air-flow within the cooking area is important prevent the area from having too much smoke and also to reduce the spread of smell from the food being cooked. Here are the equipments to consider:

Range hood
Regular Hood w/filter
Make-up Air Hood w/filter
Window Exhaust and Shutter
Filter
Floor & Wall Fans

Food cooking Utensils - this would consist of the basics and some that you can do without.

Pots and pans:

cooking pots – sauce pan, stock pot, soup pot, sauté pan, pasta cooker, brazier pot

wok – single handled, double-handled, steel, or Castiron

frying pan – stainless steel, non-stick, steel-fry, cast-iron fry

kettle

Others:

Range Top grill or barbecue grill

Ladles

Food turner

Strainer

Rubber Spatula and scraper

Skewer

Mixing paddles

Deep Fry Basket

Wooden mixing spoons

**Gas Match

Food Preparation Utensils -
Measurement utensils – cups, spoons, weighing scale,
Cutting and Slicing tools – knives, knife holder, knife sharpener, chopping board,
Food containers – Colanders (Stainless steel, Aluminum, plastic)
Dish pan, flat pan, food containers
Mixing bowls
Pails
Plastic Storage containers with covers
Funnel
Scoop
Tenderizer
Can and bottle opener
Thermometer
Whip and Hand Mixerz