Using a Walk-in Cooler for Your Catering Business

Whether your business is large or small, it’s important to have a dependable cooler for any catering company. A walk-in cooler is a smart investment for your catering company for a variety of reasons:

• Prepare for Each Job in Advance – It doesn’t matter if you are in the middle of the busy holiday season or just have a lot of wedding receptions booked at once, a walk-in cooler is vital. Having this space allows you to keep everything together without having to worry about stuffing your refrigerators.
• Get Ahead of Your Prep Work – In addition to making sure that you have plenty of storage for your upcoming jobs, you can use your walk-in cooler for your prep work. A cooler allows you and your team to prepare ahead of time and keep everything at an optimal temperature.
• Follow Regulations – Having a walk-in cooler allows you to follow your local food handling regulations. With these coolers, you will have the room you need to properly store your food and keep it at the right temperature.

When are in the market for walk-in cooler parts, you can rest assured that O-Reps will provide you with a wide array of selections at a price that you can afford. Take a look at our selections and place an order today.

3 Tips for Using Infrared Burners

In recent years, a substantial number of restaurants have begun ditching traditional grills in favor of infrared burners — and there’s little wonder as to why. In addition to heating up quickly, infrared grills are easy to clean and cook meat far more evenly than most old school grills. Restaurateurs who are thinking about investing in infrared burners would be wise to read up on them before making them a permanent fixture in their respective kitchens. Anyone eager to learn more about infrared burners is sure to benefit from the following pointers. 

1. Get Used to Fast Heat Times

Incredibly fast heat times are among the primary advantages of infrared burners. Since these burners heat up far more quickly than traditional grills, it’s important that your kitchen staff promptly grow accustomed to this. More infrared burners are fully heated within one to two minutes, meaning they’re essentially ready to go immediately after being turned on.

2. Avoid Thin Cuts of Meat

Because of how hot they burn, infrared burners are primary designed to cook thick cuts of meat, like pork chops and steaks. This isn’t to say that they absolutely can’t be used to cook thinner cuts, but more often than not, this is likely to result in charring and overcooking.  

3. Be Wary of Overcooking 

As previously stated, infrared burners are incredibly powerful. With this in mind, your kitchen staff will need to be particularly wary of overcooking. A good infrared grill is able to cook meat much faster than a traditional one, so it’s very important that your preppers keep a watchful eye on every entrée in order to prevent overcooking.  

Infrared burners hold a number of advantages over traditional grills. Fast heat times and fast cook times combined with evenly-cooked, flavorful entrees make these convenient burners a must-have for any busy restaurant. When it comes time for your eatery to make the switch, make sure that both you and your staff are well-versed in the previously discussed tips.

Why a Holman Toaster Is a Must-Have for Your Restaurant Kitchen

No matter what kind of restaurant you run, odds are you serve and store a fair amount of bread. In addition to being one of the most popular appetizers worldwide, bread is an important part of a wide range of entrees. As such, you’d be hard-pressed to find a restaurant that doesn’t place a strong emphasis on purchasing and properly storing it. Furthermore, any restaurant that serves bread needs access to a state-of-the-art toaster, like the widely-renowned models from Holman. If you’re currently in the market for a new toaster, consider the benefits of going with Holman.   

Consistent Heat

Consistent heat is among the cornerstones of a quality Holman toaster. Since Holman’s conveyor toasters contain quartz infrared heaters that provide all the bread stored within with consistent heat, you’ll never again have to worry about serving cold toast to a patron. Diners who love having their toast just right are sure to appreciate this innovative feature.   

Able to Accommodate Various Types of Bread

It should be noted that many of Holman’s conveyor toasters are able to accommodate more than traditional sliced bread. Many models can also toast bagels, English muffins and hoagie bread to perfection. Regardless of what types of bread your restaurant traditionally serves, a reliable Holman toaster is guaranteed to serve you well.  

Reliability  

Although you may need to replace the occasional part, a Holman toaster will be a fixture in your kitchen for a good long while. Holman has been manufacturing top-quality food service equipment for decades, and many restaurant owners associate their name with unmatched quality.   

When shopping around for new toasters, restaurateurs are guaranteed to come across a plethora of options. While many of them are sure to have their good points, few of them are liable to offer nearly as much as a first-rate Holman toaster.

Why Is It so Important to Keep Your Grill Clean?

You’d be hard-pressed to find a restaurant in which the grill isn’t constantly in use. From fast food chains to privately-owned fine dining establishments, grills are fixtures in virtually every restaurant kitchen. However, if you’re not keeping your grill immaculately clean, you’re liable to face a litany of undesirable consequences. Budding restaurateurs who are curious about why frequent grill cleaning is absolutely essential can learn a lot from the following tidbits. 

Efficiency

A dirty grill is an inefficient grill. The more food particles, gristle, and assorted filth are allowed to build up on your grill grates, the harder it will be to efficiently cook meat. As a result, many of the entrees prepared on dirty grills are unevenly cooked and, in some cases, unhygienic. Suffice it to say, if your restaurant develops a reputation for serving improperly grilled entrees, you can expect your online reviews to take a nosedive. If keeping your grill grates clean is becoming a more difficult task, it might be time to look into replacing them with brand-new grill grates.

Sanitation

Cooking meat on a dirty grill is incredibly unsanitary. Not only does this decrease the chances of the meat being cooked all the way through, it also increases the likelihood that it will be unevenly heated, with certain areas being very hot and others being very cold. Furthermore, it’s doubtful that any diner who’s served a steak, burger or chicken breast that’s awash in gristle will return to your establishment.  

Cost-Effectiveness

Regularly cleaning your grill can also save you a tremendous amount of money in the long run. In addition to reducing the need for replacement grates, it helps prevent grills from overheating, thereby decreasing the need for costly repairs.

As any experienced restaurateur can tell you, a consistently clean grill is an absolute necessity for any eatery. Failure to properly care for your grill is practically guaranteed to land you in hot water with health inspectors and result in disappointed diners. In the interest of efficiency, sanitation, and cost-effectiveness, clean your restaurant’s grills as often as needed.  

3 Tips for Maintaining an Impeccably Clean Restaurant Kitchen

Cleanliness is vitally important in restaurant kitchens. Failure to keep floors, counters, and assorted food prep tools nice and clean can lead to on-the-job accidents and create a variety of health hazards. Furthermore, a messy kitchen isn’t going to do your restaurant any favors with local health inspectors. Fortunately, keeping your kitchen impeccably clean doesn’t have to be an uphill battle. With the help of the following pointers, you and your staff can uphold cleanliness in the kitchen without inhibiting your ability to efficiently serve customers and fill orders. 

1. Divvy up Cleaning Tasks

Going into something with a plan is always preferable to flying blind — and this is particularly true when it comes to kitchen cleaning. At the beginning of each workday, create a list that divvies up the various kitchen cleaning tasks between your staff members. To ensure that people don’t constantly get stuck with jobs they don’t enjoy, make a point of assigning people tasks that make use of their strengths. For example, if a certain employee displays an affinity for cleaning grill grates; consider making this his or her regular cleaning task. Replacing grill grates every so often is also a smart move.

2. Clean at Various Points throughout the Workday

As anyone who’s worked in food service can confirm, most kitchen cleaning tasks need to be performed multiple times each day. In addition to table busing and dishwashing, your staff should also be scrubbing the floors and cleaning the grills as needed. Staying on top of these chores helps avert health hazards and ultimately saves everyone more work down the line.  

3. End Each Workday with a Clean Kitchen

Before your staff heads home for the night, confirm that the kitchen is spotless. This will ensure that you’re able to start afresh with a clean slate and hit the ground running when it comes time to open back up. 

No one is well-served by a messy restaurant kitchen — not restaurant owners, not kitchen staff, and certainly not diners. Although keeping an immaculately clean kitchen may seem like a herculean undertaking, this is actually far from the case. Hard work and consistency go a long way in promoting clean restaurant.