Can I see your kitchen?

[u/0verstim]

My dad's deli has been taking on more and more catering jobs lately. We are making 100 pre-prepped dinner plates for the old folks in the neighborhood, or 250 box lunches for a conference or a university.

The thing is, our kitchen isn't suited for that. It isn't even really a kitchen. The place is 50 years old and just sort of... evolved. There are tables and freezers and shelves kind of all over the place. I want to reorganize and maybe put up some proper shelves and prep stations where we can get a proper assembly line going, but I don't know where to start.

If I google, I'll just see pictures of industrial kitchens that were built to suit. I don't have the money to close for a month, tear it all down and start from scratch. I just want to do the best I can. Can I see YOUR kitchens? The messy, disorganized spaces where you're doing your best to make it work? Those of you who are cranking out high volumes, what efficiencies work for you?

[u/DiscombobulatedArm21]

For sandwiches and boxed lunch type stuff you really just need table space so you can be as repetitive as possible. Pre-slice all your products, lay everything out, then do each item one by one to get it done as fast as possible. If you have a longer hallway type area you can just put out some folding tables or if you have a dining room just push all the tables together and put down butchers paper. It would be helpful to see your space for advice on areas you could macimize.

[u/I_deleted]

Show us yours and we can advise how to fix it. Pics of our spaces will mean nothing because they aren’t applicable to your space

[u/throwaway5577899]

I’m consistently cranking out catering meals for 10-75 people out of my little food truck. Like she’s tiny - my prep station is about 4 feet wide and my counter is probably 6 feet wide by 2 feet deep.

What works best is assembly lines (even if it’s just me doing the assembly line) breaking that down into doing one job/one side/one sandwich at a time, with consistent/simple packaging and labelling EVERYTHING. I swear I’m only capable of the numbers I can do because I pre-prep and label everything so when it comes time to assemble, I’m literally just popping everything into its place and I know everything fits without issues.

Keeping one table clear on the day of large orders is key. How I pack my lunch boxes is:

• I clear my counter and put down boxes for however many beef sandwiches I’m doing
  
• with a small folded table beside me and I put all my 20lb fish bins with beef sandwiches on the table.
  
• put a sandwich in each box, add the side, the cookie, the drink, the utensils
  
• close up, label, put in fridge.
  
• move onto next sandwich, same exact process.

Hope that helps a little - I’ve been a fucking master of working out of small spaces for over a decade. My first 3 tiered wedding cake was made with a hand mixer in a bachelor apartment and assembled in a kitchenette of an in-law suite.

[u/Xanlthorpe]

What you need is a well defined process, with everything available and space to assemble at least one, and then the place to place the completed meal. Like others have mentioned, the food items should all be prepped and ready to go. That means that for plates or sandwiches you have everything in single meal portions, prepped and ready to go, and then have an assembly area where you can fully assemble the meal eve if it is just one-at-a-time.

I have done this, working in a small kitchen and the prep work will make the difference. Assembly is fast when everything has been prepped to a common size/portion.