Commercial Kitchen Design

Designing a smart commercial kitchen is key when looking at the management and efficiency of any organisation’s catering package. Our experience in the commercial kitchen design trade – combined with an integrated office of Account Managers, Project Managers and Designer/Estimators – gives us unparalleled knowledge of designing successful kitchens and allows us to truly be the one-stop shop of commercial catering needs.

One-Stop Shop

Sporting dedicated Account Managers and an in-house commercial kitchen design department, Link2Link are able to take care of an entire project from initial enquiry right through to handover, ongoing aftercare support and preventative maintenance. We provide catering equipment from premium brands with time proven reliability and quality that will blend into the kitchen design perfectly.

Using our state of the art commercial kitchen design facility, we’re able to format the exact piece of equipment we’ve specified for the project, guaranteeing pinpoint accuracy during the installation phase of the works. Below is a brief summary of just some of the areas our design service encompasses:

Entrance, exits and fire exits
Cold rooms
Commercial fridge freezers
Dry storage and racking
Hygienic wall cladding
Hand wash basins and facilities
Flying insect protection
Food preparation area’s
Stainless steel cupboards, benches and wall shelves
Sinks dish wash tabling
Commercial ovens, grills and fryers
Canopies and ventilation systems
Fire suppression systems
Pass-throughs hot cold and ambient cupboards
Food service counters complete with granite,corian,marble, finish along with laminated front and end panel follow ID contract designs

The Design Process

Our Account Managers specialise in the design and installation of commercial catering equipment across a diverse area of market sectors, meaning that whoever visits your venue is an expert in your particular kitchen’s needs. We work on all kinds of projects – whether it’s a venue being completely refurbished, a new build construction or simply an existing kitchen just wanting rejuvenation, we provide a comprehensive package that aims to make the commercial kitchen design and installation process as straightforward as possible.

Enquiry logging

First and foremost, we’ll get to know everything we can about the project and our clients:

What kind of venue will the kitchen belong to?
How many covers are you looking to serve?
What mealtimes are you catering for?
What kind of food is the kitchen looking to produce?
Do you have any brands in mind, or existing kitchen equipment you want to use?
At what stage is the project currently? Are there any scale drawings of the room?

Upon getting this information, the enquiry will be passed on to a dedicated Account Manager who will progress with the enquiry.

Getting to know you

Our Account Manager will engage with you to discuss the project in more detail and ascertain your goals for the catering operation . This would ideally include a meeting with you and your team preferably viewing your operation or understanding the design intend.

The purpose of this stage is to gain the detailed information that will be needed for the specification and design of your kitchen, including (but not limited to):

- Catering budgets
- Exact wall dimensions and the floor’s square meterage
- Elevations
- Extraction and power requirements
- Styles of service (e.g. banqueting, self, waiter, assisted)
- Clearing system (trolley by staff, self-clear trolley, mechanised, etc)
  The purpose of this stage is to gain the detailed information that will be needed for the specification and design of your kitchen, including (but not limited to):

We invest heavily in commercial kitchen design software and can receive files in various formats, Autodesk Revit (RVT/IFC), Autodesk AutoCAD (DWG/DWF) and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) meaning we can work alongside your team to develop the catering design with the co-operation of all stakeholders in the project.

Detailed commercial kitchen design

We can work with you from initial concept stage, creating BIM compliant (if required) layouts to feed into the main project model and working alongside your team contributing to online build systems .

We can also provide standalone designs with 3D renders and walkthroughs to enable you to fully realise your vision (should this be requested).

We have a wealth previous projects within the commercial catering equipment sector from small restaurants to multi airport and hotel establishment catering schemes. Our fully qualified staff are aware of the ever-changing rules and regulations of the industry and will guide the commercial kitchen design process in the right direction to ensure all your needs are met. Below is a brief list of just a few of the issues we consider when designing a kitchen for you.

Goods delivery process and stock rooms/cold rooms etc
Staff and care facilities
Dirties return and clean servery routes
Services entry points
Cleaning requirements
Service turnaround times
Hygiene management and cross contamination avoidance
Pest control issues
FM consideration
Commercial ventilation needs
Gas Safety
Any commercial catering equipment energy efficiency requirements

We provide a flexible, comprehensive package that aims to make the process as straightforward as possible.

Client liaison

Before we progress with the commercial kitchen fit-out we undertake a full client liaison process.

We ensure the client – be they a contractor, consultant, architect or end user – understands the design proposal, the budgets and the time frame involved to deliver the project. We listen to, and understand, any alterations required by stakeholders and modify our designs and specification in line with the needs of the project to obtain a fully signed off, compliant, commercial kitchen design ready for the installation phase.

Site co-ordination

With the design and specification of the project complete we continue to develop construction stage M.E.P. drawings including fully detailed points and services layouts for use by the clients site team throughout the build and fit out phase.

From this point forwards the scheme would be assigned a member of our project management team to work alongside the account manager and co-ordinate the installation phase of the process.

Our team will work with end users/owners, main contractors/architects/site contracts to co-ordinate and plan all element of the installation of kitchen to provide a fully installed, tested and commissioned commercial catering kitchen.

Space & Layout

The layout and flow of the commercial kitchen design is integral to it running efficiently and adhering to regulations. We’ll take into account the styles of service, the amount of staff members and their levels of expertise, the amount of covers per serving as well as the actual food being served, all in order to make sure every inch of the kitchen is used to its maximum potential.

Planning

Our primary consideration is to obtain the correct flow for the kitchen, each area is carefully laid out with each piece of equipment’s position being considered in detail throughout the design process.

Depending on the client’s capacity and style of service, we’ll continually adapt our design to make sure the plan adheres to the stakeholder requirements, the job specification and all relevant regulations; Including but not limited to gas, space, movement, hygiene, serving, fire safety, environmental and any civil department requirements of the specific project.

Our experienced design team consider the goods entrances, food preparation and cooking, service options and dirties return when designing a commercial kitchen. These considerations ensure that the kitchen flows smoothly and that no cross contamination occurs when the kitchen is operating at full capacity.

By combining these considerations with those of the actual operation (staff expertise, food served, covers per serving), we eliminate any future inefficiencies within the commercial catering process and give the venue the best possible footing to achieve high health and safety standards.

Equipment positioning

Using a wide range of commercial catering brands and fabricators means every kitchen, regardless of the venue or size, can receive the best catering equipment that’s perfectly suited to its needs. The extensive knowledge we have of the catering equipment industry from both a design and installation perspective gives us a unique advantage when working on projects that are constrained in both size and shape.

Tying in with the flow of the kitchen, we group certain types of equipment (and separate others) to maximise efficiency and dispel any unwanted exchange between products. This applies to equipment such as fryers (maintaining separation between them and other products using splash guards and in-fill benches) and cookware (keeping 6-burners, solid-tops and chargrills together).

We formulate the design of your commercial kitchen using a variety of different styles which can include and island (a main block of commercial cooking appliances in the middle of the space, with sinks, warewashing and preparation areas located along the outer areas), sections (dividing the kitchen into zones – for food preparation, cooking, refrigeration, warewashing, etc) or assembly lines (this arrangement is mainly utilised in venues serving large quantities of the same food, with long preparation areas followed by a selection of cooking appliances and washing facilities placed nearby). The above design styles are just a small selection of the options we can provide. Ultimately the solution we propose will be fully tailored around to your requirements and will provide you with an efficient operation for years to come.

Layout

We have a vast portfolio of completed projects and clients ranging from restaurants to boutique hotels, bakeries, hospitals and education facilities. We know a great deal about the appropriate layouts for different venues.

We aim to segregate different food preparation areas (raw fish, vegetables, dough, meat & poultry, dessert) to avoid cross-contamination, all the while making sure that the preparation zones have easy access to the cooking area. By prioritising the kitchen’s functionality through well-ordered design and in conjunction with the adoption of safe hygienic management process’ by the site team. We create a visible definition between the different areas of the kitchen that then enable the guidelines set by the Environmental Health department to be adhered to.

When considering a catering layout, we place a weighted focus towards the correct positioning of the sinks within the scheme. For similar reasons to those of segregating certain food prep areas, the incorrect placement of sinks can be extremely detrimental to a venues food hygiene standards.

While kitchens at home will only have one sink, commercial kitchens must have separate sinks for preparation, pot washing and hand washing. Commercial kitchen operations must be focused on the issues related to the crossover of bacteria and the related requirements by the EHD.

Ensuring the issues mentioned above are addressed through good design and management process’ will minimise the risk of bacteria spreading from surface to surface and enable the kitchen to aim to achieve the highest of hygiene standards whilst also operating in an efficient and cost effective manner.