How to Handle Repairs in a Busy Commercial Kitchen

A commercial kitchen is often an extremely busy environment, particularly if it's part of a popular franchise or provides catering to a large building or area. In such busy workspaces, there is often concern when catering equipment repairs and maintenance are required.

Operators may think that repairs will halt or significantly hinder the commercial kitchen's day-to-day operations. However, through a combination of smart workflows, highly trained commercial kitchen engineers, and planned preventative maintenance, it's absolutely possible to get your catering equipment back up and running with minimal disruption.

PPM: Reducing the Need for Commercial Catering Equipment Repairs

Prevention is better than the cure, and that’s where Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) comes in. These are scheduled maintenance works, often biannual, that are carried out on your commercial kitchen equipment to check that it is running correctly and address any potential issues in advance.

Our guide to how planned preventive maintenance saves you time and money can explain how this service helps to avoid more disruptive maintenance work down the line.

Timing Your Commercial Kitchen Repair Service

Even the busiest commercial kitchen has quieter periods, during which repairs are most convenient. For many restaurants, this is in the morning. However, many commercial kitchens prefer this time for repairs, while engineers must work a full day, so it may not be possible to schedule your commercial kitchen equipment repairs for this time.

Hiring Skilled Engineers for Commercial Kitchen Repair

A well-trained commercial kitchen engineer is agile, tolerant, and adept at working around your operations. Therefore, it is recommended that you hire reputable engineers from a trusted source for maintenance and repair works that will cause minimal disruption to your commercial kitchen.

At the Airedale Group, we employ over 300 specialist engineers who work through a flow system to perform repair works swiftly and effectively. We help our engineers keep the process quick by shipping equipment parts ahead of time where applicable and providing an in-house app to aid the flow process.

Risk Assessments: Allowing Repairs and Day-to-Day Operations to Co-Occur Safely

There are, of course, a number of risks when carrying out essential repair work in a busy kitchen environment. That’s why our commercial kitchen engineers will always carry out a full risk assessment before proceeding with any repairs. All engineers are fully trained in the risks associated with both the commercial kitchen equipment and commercial kitchen environment, and are skilled at mitigating them.

Can an Operator Conduct Restaurant Equipment Repair Themselves?

With a busy environment and a never-ending influx of customers to feed, you may be reluctant to wait for an engineer. Unfortunately, many repairs will require a specialist, particularly pieces of equipment that require a gas safe registered engineer.

At the same time, there are instances where commercial kitchen staff can carry out maintenance with specialist instruction. With our triage flow system, our trained experts can answer your call and identify where issues can be dealt with without an engineer having to be physically sent out. They can then clearly talk your staff through the steps required to remedy the issue.

Backup Commercial Kitchen Equipment

If a significant piece of equipment requires repair, certain key menu items may be unavailable until maintenance can occur. Having backup equipment, such as multiple griddles or fryers, can allow you to proceed with business as usual while the original equipment is repaired.

Temporary Provisions for Long-Term Commercial Kitchen Maintenance and Repair Works

If your commercial kitchen requires large-scale maintenance or a rebuild, you may need to look into provisions for your operations, such as operating out of a temporary structure. An example is when school kitchens built on RAAC concrete had to be rebuilt.

So that pupils could still be fed while this work took place, we at Airedale teamed with Portakabin to create modular solutions, prefabricated units containing fully functioning kitchens. In the unlikely event that maintenance causes long-term disruption to your commercial kitchen service, you can contact us to explore solutions.

Do you require repairs and maintenance work to be carried out in your commercial kitchen? Airedale’s team of engineers are highly specialised in attending large-scale industrial kitchens and working with multi-site operators for excellent maintenance across locations.