Better BOH: Optimizing Back-of-House Spaces

Amid rising food costs and stagnant consumer spend in restaurants, restaurateurs need to look beyond pricing increases to optimize profitability. Design and development provide a toolkit for not only managing costs but helping venues be more resilient in the face of labor shortages. Back-of-house (BOH) design is a powerful engine for transforming restaurant operations in ways that impact both bottom-line costs and topline revenue.

Working in both hotel restaurants and freestanding venues, we see operators across the board trying to balance excellence in the guest experience with cost increases that affect everything from the size of BOH itself to equipment choices and waste management. Here are some best practices:

Design For Tech to Come

Restaurant tech has a physical presence, whether that’s digital order displays or new automated stations. Design should not only accommodate what’s currently in use, but be optimized for effortless integration of evolving systems over the life of the restaurant. Spaces need to allow for future evolutions in how digital menus, interactive guest ordering systems and POS systems are used. It might even be worth considering mobile plug-and-play equipment rather than built-in options where possible.

Electrical and low-voltage work is another key example. Pre-wire for future data and points of connection as needs change. Plan for increases in electrical loads that might come from future upgrades. Do the same for utilities. The current design of chases, walls, raised floor systems and so on has a major impact on the ease of future changes to any utilities within the restaurant. 

Get Ahead of Changing Regulations

Don’t try to build a kitchen for 2025. Look at where regulations are heading and make sure that the restaurant is prepared for the next evolutions and changes. Right now in California, building codes are moving to more stringent use of solar and all-electric kitchens, you want to be ahead of the curve, not trying to catch up.  We also advise clients to double down on procurement decisions that are operationally efficient and environmentally conscious, such as high-efficiency refrigeration and induction equipment for cook lines.

Don’t Miss Out on the Cost-Saving Potential of Getting Basics Right

Even in today’s high-tech restaurant world, the basics of good, efficient design are still powerful tools for a more operationally efficient venue. For example, good passive ventilation cuts down utility costs. Arguably, an even more important basic element to get right is the layout. Optimizing layouts makes it easier for fewer staff members to run the kitchen and the front-of-house floor. Understand adjacencies as they relate to the flow of the restaurant. That’s critical to empowering the venue to run well even with a lean staffing model. The first step is to take a comprehensive look at both physical and visual communication between the FOH and the BOH.

Even looking at staffing models and the responsibilities between staff roles can help a restaurant function more effectively at different times of the day as peaks of demand shift. Shorten travel paths between them where you can. Make sure there’s direct visibility from FOH to the kitchen if possible – it simplifies communication between staff members. You can centralize some cooking zones such as prep and dishwashing.  Waste sorting infrastructure and compost collection areas help create efficiencies in dealing with food waste. Finally, cutting out bottlenecks and blind corners may sound like common sense, but it saves significant time and labor.