Efficient design for in-store kitchens

Advance planning is the key to minimizing labor and maximizing ROI.

The most important thing to remember when discussing efficient in-store kitchen design, experts and store operators agree, is a simple maxim: Less is more. Fewer steps for workers between tasks can mean more efficiency and lower payrolls. Less menu variety can mean a quicker return on investment and a more profitable operation if equipment needs are kept in line with menu expectations. But any discussion of menus leads to one area of kitchen planning where less isn't more: Less advance menu planning won't mean any more efficient kitchen design. If anything, it will mean less efficiency more costs and a slower return on investment.

"People put in kitchens that cost an arm and a leg and put in equipment they never use," warns James Riesenburger, a managing partner at Riesenburger Leenhouts & Associates, a Rochester, N.Y-based design firm. Though the Food Marketing Institute reports that 84 percent of stores now offer prepared foods, and the number of prepared food menu choices in the average store rose from 30 to 50 last year, that doesn't mean every store adding a kitchen should be planning to sell 50 different items.

"You have to determine what you want to market first," says Joe Peterlin, a project designer at SS Kemp, a Cleveland-based design firm. Patricia Jordan, director of deli/bakery at Andronico's Markets, Albany, Calif., does just that. Each of her 10 stores has a kitchen -- a new one is going up right now. She's done surveys to figure out which menu items will sell best at each location, and then developed kitchen plans from the results of the surveys.

Chris Gogos, executive chef and catering manager at Morton Williams Associated Supermarkets, New York, handles 1,800 lunches a day from his 57th Street store. He advises doing mailings and customer interviews to determine a menu. "Then you start buying your equipment and you start designing a kitchen," he says.

MINIMIZE MOTION

Once a menu is set, design should strive to minimize motion in a kitchen. Riesenburger and others note a straight-line setup can be the most efficient, with food progressing from kitchen-dedicated storage to prep areas to cooking and then finishing areas and display But the reality of many store designs makes straight lines impractical. In such cases, Riesenburger likes to minimize worker motion to three steps in any direction to reach a required workstation. Andronico's Jordan notes that in her kitchens "we base it all on what we feel is the best flow and the least amount of steps."

But sometimes problems arise. In one Andronico's store, for example, kitchen storage of meats and vegetables is on a different floor from the kitchen. Jordan found workers there making 25 time-consuming trips a day to storage. More careful planning has gotten that down to three daily trips, but the experience has left her saying, "You want to keep your storage as close as possible" to the kitchen.

Gogos' kitchen is really two kitchens separated by an island. The rear kitchen, next to meat and produce storage space, is where the heavy work is done--preparing foods and cooking or precooking items that will be finished in front of consumers. The front kitchen is the show area consumers see. There, during the lunchtime rush, Gogos has six chefs preparing a variety of pasta and other dishes for customers. He knows how long it should take those chefs to prepare dishes, say two minutes for a plate of pasta. That makes it possible for him to know how quickly items should be moving forward to his front kitchen.

"If you organize it properly, all your food should be right there when you need it," he says. He's put his serving stations side-by-side so that in the slower evening selling period, he can have fewer staffers handling the out-front cooking duties, thus saving on labor. Prepacking of case-ready salads for the next day is done from 10p.m. until 7 a.m., so the kitchen is always in use.

CALCULATING COSTS

Kitchen costs can range from $200,000 to more than $600,000, not counting the cost of display cases. Expected returns should guide spending, Riesenburger says. He gives an example of a 40,000-square-foot store that does $300,000 a week in sales. Such a location can expect to do about $28,000 a week in prepared items. Operators could build an 800-square-foot kitchen for about $200,000 (without showcases) if they serve a menu of pizzas, subs, sandwiches, pasta, salads, chicken and juices. Equipment needs include an 8- by 3-foot stainless steel grill, chopping/slicing/dicing machines, food processors, a six-burner range, a combi oven that can steam, roast or do convection cooking, large and small kettles for soups and sauces, a rice cooker, a pizza oven, a microwave, a broiling grill and a pizza reheating unit, along with dishwashers, hand sinks for employees and a wrapping station with heat-sealing equipment.

"Not being in the [restaurant] industry, [store operators] don't realize the cost of the equipment," Peterlin says. He's working on a Texas in-store kitchen right now that will cost $650,000 without the cost of display cases.

"Everyone wants it a little different," he says of in-store kitchen design.

Gogos notes that equipment makers are coming out with more and more combination appliances that can do a variety of tasks. But such devices often are much more expensive than single-purpose alternatives. Here again, menu expectations could help stores decide on whether they need combi appliances or not.

Whatever design a retailer chooses, it should remember to minimize labor needs and maximize potential returns by doing advance menu planning. In that regard, in-store kitchens are an example of another design maxim: Form follows function.

Know your costs

Many store operators begin planning an in-store kitchen with little idea of what cooking equipment will cost. Joe Peterlin, a project designer with SS Kemp, a Cleveland-based design firm, gives the following cost examples:

EQUIPMENT                             COST
Counter w/under-counter refrigeration $3,000 - $5,000
Dishwasher                            $8,000 - $10,000
Exhaust system                        $15,000 - $20,000
In-wall cooler                        $6,000 - $7,000
Prep tables                           $700 - $800
Range                                 $1,500 - $2,500
Steam table                           $3,400 - $5,000
Six-pan steamer                       $7,000 - $8,000

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