The kitchen is the center of your business. You need high-quality, high-powered commercial kitchen equipment to withstand daily use and keep your staff organized and happy. Before you start purchasing equipment for your kitchen, it’s crucial to note which appliances are right for your restaurant.

Starting a restaurant easily cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Equipment, space, menu design, and marketing are all big-ticket items that add up quick. Throw in staff and inventory and your funding may start to look flimsy. While these factors may seem nonnegotiable, businesses before you have made it by on much less money than normal and still seen success. Read on to find out how you too could start a restaurant with a barely-there budget.

Smoothie bars are all the rage and have been for a few decades. They are a convenient way to get a cool drink and a serving of fruit and veggies. Popular places to have one is near a health club or in malls or on the beach. There are several different types of equipment you’ll need to start up your smoothie bar. This is a guide along with some recommendations to help you get started.

During the hot summer months, everything tends to run a little slower. To help your ice machine run more efficiently, so you can keep cool,Ice-O-Matic has some helpful tips for maximum ice machine productivity.

Health inspections for commercial dining venues are a fact of owning such a business, and thank goodness for them, because we’d never want to eat out if there weren’t any guidelines. The experience can, however, be unnerving to the point of downright terror if you allow it to be. There are some common sense ideas in preparing for a health inspection that can make it less painful and more successful.

With the constantly increasing awareness of world energy use becoming a more and more pressing concern with every passing year, many food service establishments are beginning to look for ways to reduce their waste production and excess energy use. The mental image of trash being emptied into slowly crowding landfills is powerful motivation for many restaurateurs to begin minimizing their waste – not to mention the increasing costs of waste disposal services. While taking steps to reduce waste is often slightly less convenient, and will take more time and effort from both you and your restaurant staff, the financial, environmental, and social impact of minimizing waste will almost certainly be worth it in the long run. Here are a few tips to start reducing your restaurant’s waste production.

When it comes to motivating your servers, business writers suggest you hold daily contests with the winners receiving small monetary prizes. They suggest, basically, that once a day you should gather your waitstaff in the kitchen, flash a fifty dollar bill, and then tell everyone that whoever sells the most surf-and-turf plates that evening goes home with the fifty tucked inside their billfold. The logic here is everybody wants money, and so when you dangle $50 over your employees’ heads, they’ll jump however high it takes to snatch it. Well, if that sounds reasonable to you, then listen up because this is important. Contests are for chumps.

It’s easy to see why restaurant furniture designers have moved away from upholstering their booths in cloth to upholstering them in vinyl. Modern vinyl fabric, which honestly is barely recognizable as a plastic anymore, duplicates the skin-like plushness of leather while costing restaurateurs much less to own. And since vinyl repels water, most of the spills absorbed by cloth upholstery simply rolls off these seats. However as you’ve probably found out for yourself, vinyl is less than 100% impenetrable to stains. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of the best cleaning techniques to undo vinyl’s most common blemishes, including solutions for ink, blood, scuffs, gum, rips, rain, the sun, & crumbs.

So you want to open your own restaurant.  It’s a more popular field than ever before because less people are taking time to cook.   Maybe you’ve seen that perfect old building being remodeled in town, and envisioned it fully of happy diners expounding on your brilliance.  Seems like a good place to start?  Wrong answer!  There’s a logical process to opening your own restaurant, and it doesn’t start with the cutest old building you’ve ever seen.

Maybe it’s because you’re swamped. Or maybe you’re just lazy. Regardless the reason, that thing you’re doing… it’s disgusting. Anyone who works in the service industry has skipped some important sanitation procedure before—it’s only when you start making a habit of uncleanliness that your restaurant begins to suffer. So be honest with yourself, are you guilty of these ten sanitation no-no’s?

With its high heat conductivity, relatively low price, and ease of manufacturing, aluminum is quickly becoming an industry standard in cookware equipment. Many modern pots and pans feature aluminum-clad bottoms to help with fast and even heat conduction without sacrificing durability, while others are made of solid cast aluminum. But with aluminum becoming a more prevalent cookware material—one that may make its way into our home or restaurant very soon, if it hasn’t already—it is important to know how to care for your aluminum pots and pans. Caring for aluminum is a bit different from caring for highly finished and polished materials like stainless steel, but with a bit of care and attention, your aluminum cookware will offer years of reliable use. Here are some tips for keeping your cooking implements in great condition:

Food-based allergies have symptoms ranging from barely noticeable to imminent threat of death.   Research suggests that approximately 15 million Americans have food allergies.  A 2015 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that food allergies in children increased by about 50% between 1997 and 2011.  The most common allergen for children is cow’s milk, while the most common allergen for adults is shell fish.   Peanuts aren’t the most common allergen for any segment of the population, but they are frequently the most violent.  Some are so allergic to peanuts they can’t be in the same room with a peanut butter cookie.   Food allergies are increasing in all segments of the population.   It’s not clear whether allergies or reliable diagnosis is on the rise, but one thing is certain.  The health threat can’t be ignored.  Food service is feeling the impact strongly.

Customers will pass judgment about your restaurant the second they sit down. That is why picking the right dinner plate is so important to the restaurateur. Dinner plates are an important part of your restaurant experience and thus should be well thought out before purchasing. It should complement the color and design of your establishment. When choosing dinner plates, you should consider several things including materials, colors, shapes and sizes.

When thinking about adding new cooking equipment to your commercial kitchen, it’s critical to ask:

• What’s on my menu today and how might it change in the future?
• Will potential additions to the menu resonate with my patrons?
• Are the menu additions appropriate for my concept?
• How many meals will I need to deliver and how will this vary by day of the week and time of day?

Lodge Manufacturing has made cast iron cooking equipment for more than 110 years. It was not until 2002 Lodge developed a vegetable oil spray system with high temperature gas ovens to season their cookware before it left their warehouse.

Spring concession season is upon us! Fans will soon be on the hunt for the perfect sports bars and local spots to watch their favorite teams compete. Today's savvy operators are cashing in on concessions profitability by embracing current food trends and elevating the overall quality of the concession dining experience. Offering low cost concession foods that are a slam dunk with customers is a winning strategy in the industry!

Outside dining is upon us again. The chance to enjoy our meal outdoors is a deciding factor for many people, including me, when choosing a restaurant. If we’ve gone to the trouble of finding an ocean, we like having dinner beside it. Side walk window shoppers and carefully tended lilies are preferable to walls of art we’ve seen before, even if we love them. Patio furniture grants us the freedom to savor your menu selections while we savor the season.

It’s no secret that there’s money in concessions. Jaw dropping food and beverage prices have reigned supreme at theaters, athletic events and carnivals for years yet people keep coming back for more.

The marketing potential of the internet has become a very powerful tool in the modern restaurateur’s brand-building repertoire. Social media and networking sites have become one of the best methods of brand promotion and word-of-mouth advertising for many companies, particularly restaurants and other foodservice establishments. But using these tools properly can sometimes be a bit tricky, and “doing it right” is often a time-intensive commitment.

If you don’t have a lot of room in your commercial kitchen but you are finding yourself in need of a good fryer, then you might look at a commercial counter top electric fryer as an option.

If you are in the market for a new refrigerator or freezer, with all the features, options, brands, and manufacturers these days, your search can turn into an overwhelming mess pretty quickly. Luckily, we are here to help. In this blog we will compare three different refrigeration manufacturers and their equipment to ensure when you are choosing your next piece of refrigeration equipment, you are well-informed to make a good decision and choose the correct fridge or freezer to fit your needs.

It’s important to know what those certifications tell you about your purchases, so we’ve listed our most common ones. The next time you’re shopping on our site, you’ll have a better understanding of the quality of products you’re considering.

It’s no secret that ice machines are not built to handle every type of situation. Generally their performance is subject to the environment and resources available. But thankfully there are some ice makers better equipped to meet the unique demands of the residential customer.

Kitchen Knives come in many different varieties and it can be overwhelming trying to find what kind of knife you need.

It has been said that smells trigger memories more than any of our senses. Maybe a cologne reminds you of your grandfather, or a hair spray reminds you of your aunt, or a specific fabric softener reminds you of a previous relationship. The power of smell cannot be under estimated.

Although food trucks have been a long-standing part of American culture, the popularity of these mobile eateries has come to an all time high within the last few years, and for good reason. Motivated entrepreneurs can start a mobile food business for a fraction of the cost to open a brick and mortar restaurant and yields several advantages over the traditional foodservice method by allowing owners to bring the food to their customers and requiring less employees to operate.

Shop JES Restaurant Equipment's Food Truck Category Here.

Often times our customers are confused about the difference between a manual and thermostatic griddles.  The difference is quite simple actually so we'll explain it in a manner that most anyone can relate to…

A phenomenon has emerged in the brewery world that has caused a chaotic stir among those wanting to make their own beer. Home brewing has not only grown into a popular activity in residential kitchens but it has also gained a reputation in commercial kitchens as well. Making your own brew is a very inexpensive product that will easily rival anything else you could buy in the store.

Do you feel like it’s time to buy a new commercial sink but you aren’t sure what type to purchase? First, you should understand why you are buying it. The cost of the sink is usually in direct comparison to the job for which it is used. If you are purchasing one for the mud room of your home, then a sink that is not NSF approved will work fine; however, if you are in an industrial environment or a restaurant, then a NSF approved sink is imperative.

American Range is a recognized leader in the commercial food service industry. With over 30 years of experience, innovative technology, and robust engineering have advanced their professional cooking equipment to withstand the challenges of the most demanding chefs and kitchens. American Range heavy-duty commercial series ovens are utilized by some of the world's most renowned restaurants, such as, WYNN Las Vegas, Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, and Cafe' Gray NYC. These highly flexible and valuable oven bases and rangetops are modular and can be reconfigured to accommodate any kitchen or cooking style. American Range's residential professional line of gas ranges, French-door wall ovens, slide-in rangetops and cooktops are commercial grade; with the soul and capability of a commercial range blended with luxurious style.

Many large restaurants and cafeterias offer food bars to give customers a myriad of options. Most of these food bars are rather large and tend to take up more space than necessary. Not only does this reduce the amount of possible table space, but it also minimizes serving options for your patrons.

End of the Year Section 179 Tax Saving Season is HERE! You could save $1000's with Section 179 tax benefits!

What is Commercial Refrigeration?

A commercial refrigeration unit is a device that provides cold storage for food, beverages, and other products that require refrigeration in a restaurant or other dining establishment. Commercial refrigeration encompasses both refrigerators and freezers, and refrigeration units are available in a variety of sizes and styles to suit your kitchen’s particular needs.

Walk-in refrigeration units are convenient and often necessary for commercial kitchens. And though the process of getting one can be overwhelming it is important to have all of your I’s dotted and your T’s crossed when ordering a walk-in unit because even the tiniest detail can affect the outcome. The key is to work with your seller and be sure that they have all of the information they need to give you what you need.

Atmosphere is very important in a restaurant. It sets the mood for how people receive your food. Having a trendy themed restaurant can be a bit temperamental, with the fleeting nature of trends. However, here is a list of trends that we think aren’t going to go out of style any time soon.

Are all dishwashers the same?

Here in the South, Pumpkin has long reined as king of the fall; but this year, chefs, limited-service brands, quick-service, and fast casual concepts have introduced non-pumpkin products and innovative spins on the pumpkin flavor with creative marketing campaigns.

Which ice type is right for your business? We will walk you through the differences and their function.

Starting a new business can be a daunting process. Worrying about having cash on hand to pay bills or better yet, pay employees is always a top priority for startup owners. QuickSpark has created an infographic to help owners better manage cash flow for their business!

Today we are starting a new series where we will feature advice from our owner Eric on various problems you may run into when setting up a commercial kitchen. Here’s our first post in the series.

Compartment sinks are not only convenient in the foodservice industry but are also mandatory in many cases. Most health and sanitation standards require restaurants to have a sink with three or more compartments to manually clean utensils and smaller equipment pieces. But washing smallwares by hand is not as simple as running some soap and water over them. Washing restaurant utensils and equipment is subject to standards just like washing your hands. This three-step process is kinda like the “stop, drop and roll” of warewashing:

What is a loon ? When most of us hear the word, we immediately picture an aquatic diving bird or perhaps your crazy aunt that hoards everything in her house until she becomes the talk of the neighborhood. In this context, we are referring to a kitchen utensil that can also be called a spoodle.

Community fish fries have long been a staple in the southeastern region of the United States. Fish fries are great for community building, fundraising, or even just family events, and their versatility and appeal has begun to spread across the nation. However, some who are unfamiliar with this largely southern tradition may have a few questions about how to “properly” host a fish fry of their own. Luckily, fish fries are traditionally very casual events, and preparing for them is usually not a terribly intensive process. Here are a few things to keep in mind when organizing your own fish fry.