Here's a story I've heard a dozen times.
Restaurant owner signs a lease. Gets excited. Starts shopping for equipment. Buys a beautiful 6-burner range, a convection oven, a walk-in cooler. Gets it all delivered. Then realizes the range doesn't fit where they planned, the cooler door swings the wrong way and blocks the prep station, and there's no outlet where the oven needs to go.
Now they're scrambling. Paying electricians rush fees. Moving equipment around. Losing days of prep time. And sometimes? Returning perfectly good equipment because nobody thought through how it would actually work in the space.
This is the equipment planning mistake that costs more than any individual bad purchase: buying without a workflow in mind.
Your Kitchen Is a System, Not a Shopping List
I get it. When you're opening a restaurant or renovating, there's a natural pull toward the exciting stuff first. You want to spec out that charbroiler. You want to pick the perfect ice machine. You want to debate Hoshizaki versus Manitowoc for three weeks (we've all been there).
But here's what separates operators who thrive from those who struggle: the successful ones design their workflow first, then buy equipment that fits it. Not the other way around.
Think about it this way. Your kitchen is an assembly line. Raw ingredients come in the back door. Finished plates go out to guests. Every step in between needs to flow logically, or you're paying for wasted motion, crossed paths, and bottlenecks during the rush.
The right 6-burner range in the wrong spot is still the wrong equipment for your kitchen.
The Four Zones Every Kitchen Needs (And How to Think About Them)
Before you spec a single piece of equipment, map out these four zones and how they'll connect:
1. Receiving and Storage
This is where product enters your kitchen. Dry goods, produce, proteins. Your walk-in and dry storage should be as close to the receiving area as possible. Why? Because every trip from the back door to a storage location that requires zigzagging through prep or cooking areas is wasted labor and a potential cross-contamination issue.
Think about the journey a case of chicken takes from delivery to cold storage. Is that path clear and direct? Or does it cut through your line? If it's the latter, you've got a problem that no amount of fancy equipment will fix.
2. Prep
Prep stations need three things: access to storage (so cooks aren't walking across the kitchen for every ingredient), adequate work surface, and proximity to smallwares like knives, cutting boards, and food processors.
This is also where many kitchens fall apart. Undercounter refrigeration at your prep stations isn't a luxury. It's a workflow decision. If your prep cook has to walk 15 feet to grab mise en place from the walk-in every few minutes, you're burning labor and slowing down service.
3. Cooking
Your hot line is the heart of the kitchen. Range, grill, fryers, ovens. These need to be arranged so a single cook (or a small team) can move efficiently between stations without colliding.
The "work triangle" concept from residential kitchens applies here too. Your most-used cooking equipment should form a tight, logical grouping. If you're doing a lot of sautéing, your range, salamander, and plating area need to be within arm's reach of each other.
Also: ventilation. Your hood needs to cover your heat-generating equipment with proper overlap. If you buy a 60-inch range and your hood only covers 48 inches, you've got a code issue before you even open.
4. Plating, Service, and Warewashing
Finished plates go out one way. Dirty dishes come back another. These paths should never cross.
The classic layout mistake? Putting the dish pit right next to the expo window. Now your servers are dodging dishwashers carrying bus tubs while trying to grab plates. Chaos.
Your dish return, warewashing, and clean dish storage should be their own isolated loop. Dirty comes in, gets washed, gets stored, goes back out to the floor. That's it.
The Questions Nobody Asks (But Should)
Before you finalize your equipment list, sit with these:
What's my menu, really?
Not the dream menu you hope to have in year three. The actual, realistic menu you'll execute on day one. If 80% of your dishes come off the grill, you need a bigger grill and maybe a smaller range. If you're a breakfast spot, your flat-top griddle matters more than your fryer bank. Let the menu drive the equipment priority.
What does my busiest day look like?
Don't size equipment for Tuesday lunch. Size it for Saturday night when you're at 150% capacity. That ice machine that seems adequate for your "average" day? It'll be empty by 8 PM on your busiest shift. Same goes for reach-in capacity, hood CFM, and prep station workspace.
Who's actually using this equipment?
If you've got experienced line cooks, a traditional setup works great. If you're staffing with less experienced folks (and let's be real, in this labor market, most of us are), you might need equipment that's more forgiving. Combi ovens with programmable settings. Induction cooktops with precise temperature control. Automated fryers that pull baskets at the right time. Equipment that reduces the skill gap can be worth every penny.
What happens when something breaks?
We talked about this in a previous post, but it bears repeating here. When you're speccing equipment, think about the service network. Is there a local technician who knows this brand? Are parts readily available? Buying a beautiful piece of European equipment with a 12-week parts lead time sounds great until you're down for two weeks waiting on a heating element.
A Quick Checklist Before You Order
I know this feels like a lot, but here's the shorthand version:
- Mapped out the physical flow from receiving to service
- Confirmed utility locations (electrical, gas, plumbing, drainage) match equipment needs
- Measured every piece of equipment against the actual available space (including clearance for doors, drawers, and ventilation)
- Confirmed hood coverage matches your cooking equipment layout
- Verified your equipment is code-compliant (NSF certified, ADA accessible where required, local fire codes)
- Thought through peak capacity, not average usage
- Considered the service network and parts availability for each major piece
If you're missing any of these, hit pause. It's easier to fix on paper than after the equipment shows up.
The Conversation We Actually Want to Have
Look, we're an equipment dealer. We want to sell you stuff. That's the business.
But here's what we've learned after years of doing this: the best customer relationships don't start with an order. They start with a conversation about what you're trying to build.
When you call us with a floor plan, a menu concept, and an honest sense of your budget, we can help you make decisions that actually work. When you call us with a list of SKUs you found online, we can take your order, but we can't save you from the mistakes baked into that list.
We'd rather have the first conversation.
If you're opening a new spot, expanding, or renovating, reach out before you finalize anything. Let's talk through the layout, the workflow, the utility requirements. Let's make sure you're buying equipment that actually fits the kitchen you're building, not just the kitchen you're imagining.
That's the kind of partnership that actually helps you win.
Planning a kitchen buildout? Get in touch and let's talk through it. Call us at (888) 307-5030 or shoot us an email at info@shopusars.com.