7 Tips for Maintaining Your Restaurant Equipment

Whether it’s big or small, the equipment in your restaurant is an investment.  As a vital part of your business, the equipment has to work perfectly whenever you’re open.  When your restaurant kitchen equipment is down, your business is down which means you are losing money.

Since prevention is the best defense, maintaining your equipment right from the start is the only way to ensure your business run optimally for years to come.

• Read the owner’s manual.  Even if you’ve been in the business for years, models change with every new release so it’s important to stay up to date with what you have.  Maybe your new stove requires something new to start it.  You need to read your manual to understand how to operate your kitchen.

• Inspect your restaurant routinely.  A faulty wire or a leaky pipe could seriously damage your company’s bottom line.  By continually checking your equipment, you can be sure then there will be significantly fewer surprises.

• After you’ve inspected your restaurant, fix your equipment.  You’ve spent good money on your equipment so it makes sense financially to take care of it.  By replacing broken parts, you can really extend the life cycle of your commercial kitchen equipment.

• Stay up to date with the warranty information of your kitchen equipment.  If it means you have to call into your provider to make sure you’ve done everything right, do it.  A warranty keeps you safe and keeps your restaurant running.

• Clean constantly.  At the end of every shift, your staff should clean and wipe down all equipment whether it was used or not.  At least once a week, your entire restaurant needs a thorough cleaning so that major cleanings don’t need to shut down your business.

• Train your staff.  Cleaning a restaurant is different from cleaning a normal building.  The equipment is specialized so the cleaning should be, too.  Your staff should also be up to date on how to work on your commercial kitchen equipment.  Keeping it going will keep your business going.

• Use common sense.  If something with your commercial kitchen looks wrong, it probably is.  When dealing with such crucial parts to your business, it’s smart to have professionals come out and inspect them.

No one ever said running a restaurant was easy, but we hope this helps to make yours run more smoothly.  If you have any questions about maintaining your restaurant equipment, give us a call.