Operating a restaurant means you have to maintain high hygiene standards at all times. You wouldn’t want your customers having food poisoning when they patronize you, hence the need for important safety facilities and processes.

Furthermore, operating a restaurant serves iced and cold products require that you have industry-standard facilities for best practices. This is because there is the popular notion that ice is just like water and is clean; which is indeed a false notion.

Though pathogenic organisms do not multiply in ice, research has shown that some infectious organisms can survive long freezing conditions. Therefore, ice should be treated just like food and should be subjected to same safety and hygiene standards as food.

Also, for a smooth and effective running of a cold restaurant business, some facilities are essential. Find below 4 important facilities that should not be absent in a cold restaurant.

Refrigerator

A refrigerator is important in the process of preserving and cooling items in a restaurant. Not all food or drinks are to be kept under freezing conditions. Some simply require mild coolness and this is where the refrigerator comes handy.

Commercial refrigerators come in various sizes and capacity to fit your restaurant needs. Some types of refrigeration units include reach-in coolers, refrigerated drawers, low boys etc.

Blast freezer

Another facility that’s essential to a restaurant is the blast freezer. A blast freezer is similar to a refrigerator but uses a different technology of cooling called blast chilling/freezing. Blast chilling is a method of cooling food quickly to a low temperature that is relatively safe from bacterial growth.

Bacteria multiply fastest between +8 °C (46 °F) and +68 °C (154 °F). Blast chilling works by reducing the temperature of cooked food from +70 °C (158 °F) to +3 °C (37 °F) or below within 90 minutes, thereby ensuring the safety and quality of the food.

Blast freezers use three classes of freezing which are soft chilling, hard chilling and blast freezing. The air temperatures can be moderated depending on how delicate the product being frozen is.

Soft chilling – Slightly warmer air temperatures, used for freezing delicate items

Hard chilling – Hard chilling is for medium to high-density products.

Blast freezing – Uses the coldest settings for freezing high-density products.

Some advantages of blast freezers include the fast freezing of hot products, ‘holding’ food and other items at a specific temperature and greater microbial growth control.

Storeroom

A storeroom is just as important as any other facility in a cool restaurant. A store room makes it easier to buy supplies in quantities thereby reducing cost and facilitating effective planning.

The store room serves as an efficient storage system for items which are to be stored at room temperature. A cold storeroom, for instance, can store things like fruits/vegetables. For this reason, it should be clean, neatly arranged and free from roaches, rodents, and the likes of them.

Ice making machine

An ice-making machine makes ice on a large scale. It is essential to meet the voluminous demand of drinks a restaurant would serve. They come in different shapes and sizes as well and can make ice in your desired manner.